the.com/spessartine
a manganese garnet that hides like fire trapped in a crystal lattice
means Spessartine is an orange-to-reddish-brown garnet mineral, a manganese-aluminium silicate, prized by collectors and cut as a gemstone.
from Named for the Spessart, a low forested mountain range in Bavaria, Germany, where the mineral was first found. The name was Latinized in mineralogical fashion (the '-ine' ending common to mineral names), so the rock literally carries its German homeland in its label. The place-name 'Spessart' itself is old and obscure, sometimes linked to a word for a woodpecker-haunted forest, but that older trail is uncertain.
- mandarin glow
- Prized gems flaunt vivid mandarin-orange to red hues
- named place
- Named for Bavaria's Spessart Mountains
- garnet kin
- One of six recognized garnet species
- hardness
- Rates 6.5 to 7.5 on Mohs scale
- mineral trio
- Forms blends with almandine and pyrope garnets
spessartine from kunene river — namibia deposits producing vivid orange specimens prized by collectors since the 1990s
spessartine from loliondo — tanzania pegmatites yielding brilliant orange garnets that transformed the gem market after 2008