Description

#1872 – A 4.1 x 3 x 1.5 -inch specimen featuring a 1.75 inch clear Quartz crystal perched on a gray sandstone matrix.  This specimen was collected in 1999.  The mine has long been closed.  The quartz in the sandstone around Mount Ida, Arkansas, originated from silica-saturated hydrothermal fluids that filled fractures in the Blakely and Crystal Mountain Sandstones during the final stages of the Ouachita orogeny, approximately 280 to 245 million years ago. The sandstone was formed from marine sediments buried deep within the Ouachita Mountains, and as the mountains folded and faulted, these fractures became conduits for hot, silica-rich water that deposited the quartz crystals as it cooled.