Quartz, Adularia

This specimen is a bright red hematite-included, doubly-terminated quartz crystal, originating from a road-widening project on Highway 400, just past Port Severn in Ontario. The crystal's front half exhibits lustrous, hoppered surfaces, while the back transitions into white quartz, mixed with grainy aggregate and micro red quartz faces. The striking color contrast between the hematite inclusions and the quartz matrix makes this piece exceptional, as most material from this road cut consists of plain white quartz. The small white crystals are adularia.

This road cut can still be visited, though it’s located in the median of a busy section of the highway in cottage country, making it quite dangerous to stop and sift through the remaining blasting rubble. On top of this, being picked through over the last couple decades it will be hard to find anything like this lovely hematite-included quartz.