🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Strange garnets, help/info required.

[mrperidot]

Hello!

I have purchased pyrope garnets from Pakistan.
I have 2 questions:
1)What kind of cross shaped "staurolite like" deformation is on one side, other remains like normal garnet.
2)Some garnets have inclusions in them, what is it? Another crystal?

Thanks.

 

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[Clay Diggins]

Welcome!

Are you in St Johns mrperidot?

From the growth patterns and inclusions i think it's likely that you have Spessartine garnets. The inclusions are usually Hematite or Muscovite but they could be Staurolite or several other minerals too. Yours do seem to be Staurolite which would also explain the reverse pattern on one side. Staurolites and Garnets in Mica Schist is a common type of rock around the world.

Pyrope garnets usually don't have many inclusions and their growth patterns are compact. Pyrope/Spessartine garnet crossover blends are also known to exist.

 

[mrperidot]

@Clay Diggins
Total weight is 1kg, close to 500 items.
Most of them are chunks but here i have some top quality items.
All stones are covered with something "oiled" and i think its a leftover of acids... should i wash them in baking soda?
For the inclusions I have a feeling its galena related, not staurolite, internal inclusions are grey and hard to scratch with metal screwdriver.Outside we have soft lead color leftovers on some corners , feels like dry paste. For the stone color- looks like pyrope. But that cross shaped thing seems to be common on many of them. Take a look on a photo below- i found Square little fingerprint in one of them. I am very interested what type garnets they are.
I do appreciate any advice what to do with them. Regarding the garnets- i am "right shape" collector.

 

[Kray Gelder]

Interesting. In Clay's excellent post he mentions that blends exist. Your garnets seem to have come out of the same pocket, grew in the same chemical soup, concurrently, and conjoined with whatever the other curiousity is. They are probably a one-off, as to composition. Not firmly in any type. Have them tested with a spectrometer, to find the components, if you feel compelled to know. JMO. Very nice crystals!