Sphalerite

This specimen features an incredibly lustrous and gemmy sphalerite with a fiery orange-red hue that glows beautifully when backlit. I collected it in the spring of 2024 from the Beamsville Quarry, an active limestone operation in Beamsville, Ontario. Access to the site is restricted, with collecting only permitted through organized mineral club visits. While the quarry is best known for its calcite specimens, fluorite and sphalerite also occur—this piece is a testament to those lesser-seen but noteworthy minerals. Sphalerite crystals from this locality are often only loosely attached to the matrix, making them difficult to extract intact. In this case, the crystal has been reattached with a small amount of glue to preserve its display quality.