It is a public gallery image, despite the unfortunately very imprecise locality information "Montana".

That it didn't show up maybe just a cache clearing thing.


The surface pattern and odd angles indicate that the shape is caused by growth inhibition, I would consider "babel quartz" a misnomer.

Erin Delventhal Wrote:

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> Amir,

> ...

> https://www.mindat.org/min-477.html

>

> Does that need to be changed?


Unfortunately I didn't even look at that page before I wrote a response.

Thanks for pointing this out.


Yes, it needs to be changed, and if it was only to explain that this English variety name is definitely not synonymous to the Swiss variety name. The meaning I know is crystals being tapered by consecutive alternating steps of rhombohedral and prismatic faces, and/or crystals tapered by a step-like development of parallel grown tips.

Ironically, Mineralienatlas has copied the Mindat definition and put an example computer rendering next to it that corresponds to the latter definition and not to the growth-inhibition type.

This kind of growth-inhibition is not uncommon in the Alps, btw., but the tapered crystals that match the Bere Alston type description are merely random products of the growth inhibition. If you look through the specimens from such a growth-inhibited pocket with some imagination, you will see "chicken, mice and elephant quartz", too, so to say. And I'm very reluctant to naming varieties by some random shapes occasionally observed. If the variety was called "chopped", "sliced", "stacked quartz" or whatever, that would be o.k., because that's what they all show.

On the other hand, if you opened a pocket with babel quartz specimens in the latter sense as depicted in the Mineralienatlas rendering, all crystals would show that step-like development with well-developed rhombohedral and prism faces, it is a systematic variation of their shape. You can start endless and tiring discussions about weather or not this is equivalent to or a variety of cathedral quartz...

Babel-quartz on Mindat: https://www.mindat.org/min-477.html.

I've read the name Muzo-habit for "crystals being tapered by consecutive alternating steps of rhombohedral and prismatic faces"

> It doesn't specify that it has to have been formed by a particular method.

The Mindat page did and that's what I didn't like about it.

Plus, and I stand by that, I wouldn't want to give random shapes varietal status, as explained above. And if someone else did and there is a nice literature reference, that still wouldn't make me adopt his/her terminology.


I would rather make babel quartz and many other varieties with multiple or fuzzy definitions not selectable.

I have no problem listing 10 different "definitions" of a term ("Some say this, some say that...") on a single page.

But as you know, I don't like "and/or definitions", like something is either x or y or z.

Or even worse, as we once had, "a is x or not x or y or not y or z or not z".

Yes, the photo shows what most people would call a cathedral quartz. Some, like me, understand babylon/babel quartz as a synonym, but I think cathedral quartz is a better name (it also sounds less esoteric). A Muzo habit does not show tower-like big steps, instead there are many very small steps, so the prisms look like flat faces with a strong parallel striation (although I also own a Muzo habit crystal with pronounced steps).


"Random" does not imply "odd". If a plane on a crystal is caused by growth inhibition by another crystal and coincides with a crystallographic axis it is still just as random and accidental a product as any other angle of intergrowth.

The first big step on your specimen does not match any regular crystal face on quartz, it appears to have been caused by growth inhibition by a slightly inclined, now dissolved crystal. Once the inhibiting crystals of the other mineral have dissolved, the quartz crystals may and often do continue to grow and typical quartz surface structures will appear again, as well as little tips that will merge into a single big tip. If there is not much growth, scars and imprints will remain on the quartz crystals and the faces will look a bit rough, sometimes even dull.


If I upload a "cathedral quartz" photo, I do not categorize it as a cathedral quartz myself and instead put a note in the caption, because these terms are fuzzy.

It's o.k. if one leaves it to the uploader to write in the caption what he thinks it is, the general audience gets an idea of how well-established or varied that term is or how consistently it is used. But if it is made a variety, it must be approvable, and then the definition must be strict, otherwise everybody will be confused. Varieties cannot be defined with the same rigor as minerals species, but some get pretty close (amethyst or smoky quartz, for example). The fuzzy ones as well as all the strange local, the "difficult" ones and even esoteric terms still deserve a description and that's why they are presented on Mindat, but they should not all be selectable as "mineral names" for photos of specimen.


As I said, I don't think shapes caused by a specific, yet accidental angle of intergrowth merit varietal status. It would be all different if there was some epitaxy, that is a systematic effect.

Second photo just posted: looks like "chopped/sliced" quartz from the Bor pit, Dalnegorsk.

Note: I call that simply growth-inhibited quartz.


Same cause, same locality, other specimen:


Would you call that Babel quartz, too?


Same specimen, different perspective:



Of course, there are specimens that are "chopped" along the c axis, too.


Many more odd-looking examples here: https://www.mindat.org/loc-4639.html

> I don't like the word step to describe cathedral quartz because those "steps" are slanted.

You are right, I often have difficulties finding the right words in English - it's not my mother tongue.


> Clearly, some of those photos above are simply sceptered or reverse sceptered.

To me, none of them are ;-)

Two Growth Interference Bor Quarry Quartz from my own collection. Can I call one "Girdle Quartz", and the other "Windswept Quartz"?


I have to agree with Amir on this one aspect. The term "Growth Interference" seems to me, covers all the possible consequences quite adequately. Best, because it's based on a solid principle of how these forms came into being. No need for fanciful, illusionary terminology based your own Mimetolithic perceptions, or whatever one particular shape or another happens to remind you of . . that practice could literally be never ending.


MRH

Hmm, "Squeeze-box" quartz . . yeah, I kinda like that Doug!


And Douglas, you've hit on the real problem . . getting contributors to describe "at all' many of their contributions. The process had already been improved by adding more mandatory fields to fill out, in order to publish/contribute, but the more you add, the more cumbersome it gets to contribute, so there is a point of diminishing return to consider as well. I've personally no pressing issues, as viewing "Quartz" will lump them all together for viewing anyway. But the number of variables describing "just quartz" is getting more "largish" year on year.