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Identity HelpAmethyst and "apophyllite"

15th Nov 2012 13:15 UTCMickey Marks

I am visiting in India,and today toured the Ajanta Caves near Aurangabad. There were a lot of street vendors hawking specimens of amethyst and "apophyllite", claiming that they came from Ajanta. When I searched Mindat for the site, there is no locality with that name. I suspect that all of the specimens at the hawker's booths come from the Poona (Pune) area. No, I did not buy anything. Does anyone know for sure that the specimens being sold here are not really from here?

15th Nov 2012 14:04 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

A lot of the stuff sold to tourists in Ajanta is really from Aurangabad and Jalgaon areas. If you want to be safe, put "Deccan traps" on the label. Not even everything labelled "Poona" is really from Poona; "Poona" is often misused as a generic term for "Deccan traps" too. Even the state name "Maharashtra" is sometimes more "generic" than reality, for Indian zeolite specimens.

18th Nov 2012 23:16 UTCMickey Marks

Many thanks, Alfredo. You confirmed my suspicions. I saw many beautiful specimens for sale in the Aurangabad area, especially at the Ajanta caves. I'm sure that most of the specimens were from the Deccan, but the vendors claimed that they were from quarries in the hills above Ajanta. I'm still just a field collector and would have loved to be able to do some collecting in the Deccan. Unfortunately, there were no opportunities to do that.

Mickey Marks

19th Nov 2012 20:12 UTCRock Currier Expert

There are no good apophyllite localities in or near the Ajanta caves. Aurangabad. The Aurangabad area is better know for its agates. Not far away is a small town called Jalna where big agate dealers can be found. At least they used to be there 30 years ago.