Behoite! Behoite! Behoite! That’s the song I’m singing today, with a big smile crossing my face from ear to ear.
It started the 27 of June, as some of you might have guessed already from the headline. There were some small, colourless to bluish white, some etched, crystals on natrolite cavities in “spreustein”. Me thinking of berborite, calcite and norstrandite… IT’S
BEHOITE!!! 11 samples were collected the July 27. Containing behoites in varying quality from only crystal fragments to samples with more than five nice crystals, several twinned, on them.
It was Knut Edvard Larsen that put me on the right track identifying them, so who others deserved to be invited on a new trip up to level 1 at
AS Granit larvikite quarry to look for more, and today we went of, together with his son in law.
The spot with the behoite rich material looked exactly like it did two weeks ago, so no one else had been there in the mean time (now you might regret- my Norwegian readers! ;-)). It only took me a couple of minutes to find one more behoite sample, now that I knew what to look for. It was quite a sample as well! A crystal about 4 mm long, slightly etched to a white colour. I found only one more sample with a crystal the same size, but that was a killer! A nice colourless twinned crystal, sitting perfect on the sample and in such a way it will be easy to trim it down to a superb behoite miniature.
Knut Edvard Larsen and his son in law on fieldtrip to AS Granit
Back home now I have counted 17 samples found today with behoite on them, only doing a rapid surface scan on the material brought home. Knut Edvard found several very good samples as well, so the total amount of samples saved from the quarry today are more than 25, I’m pretty sure.
I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say this is not only a significant behoite find for the larvikite plutonic complex, but also for the world!
What a perfect day!
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Congratulations with your wedding and the new house. Your blog entries from the Larvikite pegmatites are always appreciated. Lars Olav Kvamsdal and I visitied the Behoite locality on July 12th and met Alv Olaf Larsen who had found 3 small samples of Behoite. We managed to save a few more including a large crystal sitting nicely in a natrolite cavity. Vedry sharp and nice crystals for Behoite. The pegmatite itself is unusual for this part of Tvedalen carrying both Astrophyllite, Tritomite, Leucophanite and Hackmannite-sodalite. The Behoite may be derived from the alteration of beryllium-rich sodalite, and it is interesting to notice that the Hackmannite-variety has been found also in other pegmatites rich in Be-minerals ( i.e. in the Saga/Sagåsen area). It is sad that the financial crises haved reduced the activity in ther quarries and many are currently not being worked. Hopefully the acitivity will increase again as will the number of interesting pegmtites being exposed.
Knut
Knut Eldjarn
15th Jul 2009 9:33pm