Specimen data for Rutile

Tom Mortimer catalog number: 778

Identification method: Visual. Stubby-prismatic Rutile crystals of this habit have been collected in the vacinity of the Richmond Soapstone Quarry for many years. They have been increasingly difficult to find in the last decade.

Notes: This specimen was collected from a quartz cordierite knob known to local collectors as the "Green Balloon Prospect", (a few hundred yards south of the soapstone quarry), named for the balloon found hanging in a nearby tree. Mineral collecting buddy Mike Undercoffler retrieved the balloon from the tree several years after the initial prospecting (mid 1990's), and gave it to me.