California's PATRIOTIC COMBO

Black, White & Blue? Try Red Instead!

- JIM BRACE-THOMPSON

The broken neptunite crystal here reveals the red in this cluster of neptunite, natrolite and benitoite. Specimen from the Harlow collection.

I mentioned to a friend that I'd be writing an article on this year's Tucson Gem and Mineral Show” theme of Red, White and Blue. “Oh, yeah?” he asked. “What minerals are you highlighting?” When I replied neptunite, natrolite, and benitoite, my friend looked puzzled. Peering over the rims of his glasses he asked, “Where's the red?” Well, let me explain...

BRILLIANT BLUE BENITOITE ON A BED OF WHITE NATROLITE

The story of benitoite is now familiar to mineralogists, amateur and professional alike. Adopted as the state gemstone of California in 1985, barium titanium silicate is a rare blue beauty found in significant gem-quality quantity in only a single region at the headwaters of the San Benito River in southeast San Benito County, California. Even there, it's not easy to find. First discovered in 1907 by prospector James Marshall Couch and Often nestled together with benitoite in that white natrolite bed is opaque but shiny, jet-black neptunite. Its well-formed prismatic rod-like crystals are square in cross-section with pointed terminations. named and described by Berkeley professor George Davis Louderback in 1909, benitoite has been mined off-and-on for over a century at the small claim held by a string of owners.