| Deposits of amorphous rose quartz are fairly common worldwide. Rose quartz
crystals larger than a millimeter or two were unknown. Prominent author,
Frederick Pough, wrote, "the failure to find large well-formed crystals
of rose quartz is a geological mystery." Then in the late 1950's, a huge
vug sixteen cm wide, twenty- five cm high, and over five meters long was
discovered near Sapucaia do Norte in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil.
It was filled with sparkling druses of bright pink rose quartz crystals
with individuals up to one cm in length. In 1970 in the Rio Jequitinhonha
River in far northern Minas Gerais, an enormous deposit of rose quartz was
discovered. Thousands of pretty specimens were found with many smoky quartz
crystals, and numbers of the rare phosphates wardite, roscherite, and rockbridgeite.
The Lavra da Ilha deposit produced nearly all of the rose quartz crystals
in mineral displays today including the one in the UCSB Geology Collection.
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