Multiple crystals of different minerals seem to float effortlessly in the clear, crisp, transparent space within a carefully polished quartz point of very high quality and clarity. The thin needle like crystals of rutile, a titanium rich mineral species. The sharp translucent amber-colored crystal hanging off one rutile "needle" is a siderite, a simple carbonate mineral. Normally, these two species do not grow together, much less siderite upon a rutile needle. This quartz crystal would have had to grow effectively simultaneously with not only the silvery rutile within, but the sharp siderite rhombohedron that is hanging so unlikely off the rutile, in order to support its weight somehow even as it spontaneously grew out of a nucleus in hot solution, at the edge of the growing quartz where the rutile already was sticking out and up. It is so hard to fathom how this complex process played out, but we have the proof here in a complex multi-mineral inclusion preserved forever within the quartz crystal. Quartz is hard and sturdy, and the only way to preserve such a combination - however unlikely. Such specimens are most often cut into spheres to show the inclusions from all sides, and because the stone sphere market is so large and robust. After polishing the outer skin of the natural quartz point to reveal the inclusions within, this was saved from the cutting wheel by well-known gem and mineral collector (and the first president of Apple Computers) Mike Scott, who acquired it for his specific collection of unusual inclusions of display quality for planned museum exhibitions. Mike collected these for their mineralogical oddity and beauty both; and had a large reputation in the 1980s and 1990s for purchasing top of the top inclusion specimens that seemed to defy the normal rules and patterns, leading to a large "inclusion suite" within the larger collection of gems and crystals. This was one of the most surprising specimens of all. It displays dramatically, vertically, on

Ex Mike Scott Collection