Minerals:  Morion Quartz, Iron
Locality: Gmina Strzegom, Świdnica County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Poland
Dimensions: 109mm x 39mm x 30mm
Weight: 170g
Provenance: ex. Mala Haslem Collection

Here is an exceptional Morion quartz from Strzegom, one of Europe’s great historic pegmatite localities. The crystal appears almost black in hand, with extraordinary lustre, excellent internal clarity and a finely detailed iron rich surface that reveals itself under direct lighting.

The crystal has a strong elongated form with intensely reflective column faces and dense horizontal growth. Across parts of the surface is a remarkably fine mosaic like iron patina, creating intricate areas of texture and colour against the otherwise near black quartz. The photographs have been lit specifically to reveal this detail, so the iron patterning appears considerably more prominent here than it does in normal viewing.

Deep within the termination is an unusually bright phantom which can produce an intense rainbow under very specific lighting conditions. It is remarkably elusive. I knew the feature was present when I acquired the crystal, but it took me several months before I finally found the exact angle required to reveal it. When it does appear, the contrast between the brilliant internal feature and the dense Morion surrounding it is spectacular.

Strzegom has an unusually long mineralogical history. Regular granite quarrying in the area is documented from at least 1689, with quarrying expanding considerably during the nineteenth century. The pegmatite cavities exposed through this work became famous among mineralogists and collectors, and the district developed into one of the classic European localities for miarolitic pegmatite minerals. More than 90 mineral species have now been recorded from its pegmatite cavities.

Quartz is one of the defining minerals of the Strzegom pegmatites, particularly smoky quartz and Morion. The locality is also notable for complex multi stage quartz growth, with earlier dark smoky or Morion generations sometimes enclosed by later clearer quartz, producing phantoms within the crystals. This history of repeated growth helps explain why Strzegom quartz can show such interesting internal structure beneath an otherwise very dark exterior. 

The period from 2011 into 2012 was particularly significant for smoky quartz discoveries at Strzegom. Major pockets opened at the B-17 quarry in August 2011 and again in February 2012 produced important Morion and highly lustrous smoky quartz associations, followed in March 2012 by the discovery of a huge pegmatite cavity at Żółkiewka I containing multiple generations of smoky quartz. The August 2011 B-17 discovery was described as one of the most significant finds in the history of the Strzegom-Sobótka massif.

Production across the district reduced after 2012 as quarry activity declined, and material from these classic Strzegom finds is encountered much less frequently on the international market today. In Australia it is rarer still, and this is one of the only Strzegom Morion crystals we've personally handled here. The combination of near black colour, extraordinary lustre, internal clarity, fine iron surface texture and its elusive internal phantom makes this a particularly special example from a locality with more than a century of mineral collecting history.