Collection: Fluorite on Marble from Carrara

Carrara, in Tuscany’s Apuan Alps, is home to the world’s most famous white marble, quarried since Roman times. The marble began as Jurassic limestone, metamorphosed by the heat and pressure of the Alpine orogeny. Hydrothermal fluids seeping into its fractures and cavities deposited fluorite alongside the better-known quartz.

Carrara’s fluorite typically forms cubic crystals, ranging from white to transparent and colorless, with purple fluorite also occurring, a rarity for the locality. Growing on marble against clean white host rock and fine crystal druses, it is a quiet but scarce member of Italian mineral collecting.