Great South Gems & Minerals

• Botryoidal Fluorite specimens (Colorado) •

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• Botryoidal Fluorite specimens (Colorado) •

Calcium Fluoride - Halides

Fluorite, a member of the Halides family, is a Calcium Fluoride, with small amounts of yttrium and cerium. Hardness 4. Fluorite normally occurs in Isometric; usually cubic or as penetration twin crystals. Fluorite comes in many colors including violet, blue, green, yellow, brown, bluish black, pink, rose-red, colorless, and white.

Fluorite develops in several environments of widely different character. It is associated with albite and pyrite in carbonates; with calcite and spinel in hornfels or contact metamorphic rocks; with calcite, rhodochrosite and chalcedony in epithermal veins; and with gelena, barite, and pyrite in lode hydrothermal replacement deposits.

Fluorite is used primarily for industrial purposes such as a flux in the smelting of metallic ores and is used in the manufacture of steel and hydrofluoric acid.

In modern times Fluorite has been used as a semi-precious gemstone such as beads and in jewelry. However, due to it being so soft, its uses in making jewelry is very limited.

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