Quartz Gwindel with Clinochlore
Approx. Dimensions: 3.5 x 3.5 x 1.5 inches
Acrylic Base Dimensions: 4 x 3 x 0.75 inches
Approx. Weight: 366 grams
Locality: Dodo Mine, Saranpaul, Berezovo District, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okgrug, Russia
This piece sits on a custom milled acrylic base to securely hold the specimen, as shown in the photos.
This is a large and pristine gwindel coated in clinochlore from the famed classic locality, the Dodo Mine. The clinochlore "eats" into the surface of the quartz and, combined with the gwindel's natural twist, causes a lovely play of light. This gwindel has a very pronounced twist. It includes a custom milled and labeled acrylic base to display the specimen securely upright.
The Dodo deposit (often referred to as Dodo Mine) is a well-known mineral locality in the Subpolar Ural Mountains of Russia near the village of Neroika and some 100 km west-northwest of Saranpaul. It is part of a quartz crystal-bearing vein system in the high-latitude Urals that has attracted attention from mineralogists and collectors because of its striking and often high-quality quartz crystal specimens and associated minerals. The deposit occurs in alpine-cleft veins—fracture zones within the host rocks—where numerous mineral species crystallize, including quartz varieties (rock crystal and quartz gwindels), albite, anatase, allanite, parisite, and a suite of other silicates and oxides typical of alpine cleft mineralization. These veins cut through metamorphic and igneous rocks of the Subpolar Urals, a region shaped by complex Paleozoic tectonics that uplifted and deformed a variety of rock types and created the structural settings for quartz-rich hydrothermal activity.
Mineralogically, the Dodo deposit is significant not for large economic ore production but for the diversity and aesthetic quality of its mineral specimens. Collectors prize the deposit’s well-formed alpine quartz crystals and accessory minerals which crystallized from hydrothermal fluids in the alpine clefts. The deposit sits within a broader mineral province that includes other famed localities like the Puiva deposit, also noted for its quartz and associated minerals. Dodo and similar localities contribute to the understanding of vein-forming processes in high-grade metamorphic terranes of the Subpolar Urals and are documented in mineralogical literature as classic examples of alpine cleft mineralization in Russia.
If you'd like to learn more about gwindels, check out our blog post The Twisted Science of the Gwindel.
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