Collection: Aragonite with Kutnohorite

Levane is a small village in Bucine, Arezzo Province, Tuscany, known among collectors for its tiny geodes. The nodules are usually only one to five centimeters across, with a thin shell. Cracked open, their walls are lined with hair-fine aragonite needles in radiating sprays, clear and sparkling, some like small fluffy puffballs, others bristling like tiny spiked spheres.

Aragonite often grows here with kutnohorite, an uncommon calcium-manganese carbonate, which appears as small dark brown to reddish-brown spheres scattered among the white and transparent needles, a striking contrast of tone. Some geodes hold aragonite alone, without kutnohorite, and are just as delicate.