Boral Limited quarry, Bundoora, City of Whittlesea, Victoria, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Boral Limited quarry	Quarry
Bundoora	- not defined -
City of Whittlesea	- not defined -
Victoria	State
Australia	Country

Description: "Analcime appears to have been the first zeolite to crystallize. Analcime always occurs as very small (1mm or less), yellowish to colourless, water-clear trapezohedral crystal. Crystals of analcime may occur in druses or individually." They are not very common at the Bundoora quarry.

Description: "Aragonite has been found generally in the vesicular basalt above the zeolite zone. Spectacular aragonite sprays, white or yellow and measuring up to 40 mm across have been collected. Mamillary calcite is a common associated carbonate, and occasional small barite clusters may be present."

Description: "Translucent to opaque-white, bladed barite crystals in clusters up to 8 mm in size occur with mammillary calcite at the Bundoora quarry."

Description: Ferroan calcite is by far the most common type of calcite at the Bundoora quarry. Normal calcite occurs as white to cream mammillary coatings lining cavities along with aragonite crystal sprays and very rarely, small bladed clusters of barite.

Description: "Ferroan calcite is abundant and is intimately associated with the zeolites. The calcites are various shades of yellow, orange and brown, are translucent to opaque, and occur in a number of spectacular forms such as clubs which sometimes taper to fragile stems providing the point of attachment to the matrix; 'bow-ties'; hemispheres and nodules. The various structures are usually made up of tightly packed fibres which give a silky appearance to the specimen when held in a certain direction. Calcite also occurs as yellowish brown glassy prisms. Simple calcite rhombs are rare, although 'dog-tooth spar' is not uncommon."

Description: "Chabazite occurs as colourless, water-clear sparkling crystals, which rapidly dehydrate and become opaque and crazed upon exposure. Micro crystals are very much less affected. The crystals are always twinned, and simple chabazite rhombs, or forms dominated by the rhomb, have never been observed at Bundoora. The 'Phacolite' form and complex clusters based on this unit, are exceedingly common (up to 15 mm across)and alternative forms are rare. Chabazite from Bundoora is almost always tabular and only very rarely is the pyramidal form present to any significant extent. Prismatic crystals from Bundoora are less than 1 mm across. The crystals sometimes look like a stack of hexagonal plates, doubly terminated by the perfect hexagonal pyramid and basal plane. The plates may show a graded increase in diameter towards the middle of the crystal, generating a barrel-shape, or a graded decrease in diameter towards the centre generating an hour-glass shape, or the plates may simply show uneven stacking generating the rough prisms."

Description: "Native copper has been found at Bundoora as films on joint planes, grains in the basalt and as grains in vesicles, either in isolation or with drusy coatings of analcime or 'phacolite'. A specimen of a microcrystal of copper has been collected at Bundoora."

Habit: Radiating crystal group

Colour: White

Description: "The gobbinsite crystals form aggregates up to 4 mm across. They are water clear, with a wedge-like habit and lustrous faces that show evidence for lamellar twinning. Crystals are complexly interpenetrating and in some clusters show an apparent epitaxial relationship with a phillipsite crystal or with platy twinned aggregates of thomsonite."

Description: "The Gonnardite/Natrolite intergrowth, was considered mesolite prior to 1988. They occur as small, opaque white hemispheres and tuffs composed of radiating fibres and prismatic needles. The individual groups have diameter up to 6 mm, though typically are 1-3 mm. The groups show a variety of lustres-chalky, sub-vitreous or silky, and prismatic needles appear quite glassy when viewed through the microscope. The clusters that have been studied are radially zoned, presenting a compact gonnardite-rich core and a soft fibrous natrolite-rich outer zone."

Description: Ilmenite has been observed in several levels of the quarry. In the upper levels it occurs as black lustrous hexagonal shaped platy crystals up to 1 mm across. It also occurs in the zeolite zone, with crystals (<1mm across) laying flat on the walls of cavities, many of these crystals having a bronze coloured alteration on their surface.

Description: "The Gonnardite/Natrolite intergrowth, was considered mesolite prior to 1988. They occur as small, opaque white hemispheres and tuffs composed of radiating fibres and prismatic needles. The individual groups have diameter up to 6 mm, though typically are 1-3 mm. The groups show a variety of lustres-chalky, sub-vitreous or silky, and prismatic needles appear quite glassy when viewed through the microscope. The clusters that have been studied are radially zoned, presenting a compact gonnardite-rich core and a soft fibrous natrolite-rich outer zone."

Description: "Phillipsite is always found in complex twinned crystals, with smaller crystals generally showing the simple forms such as the fourling, the prismatic and cruciform eightling and clusters based on these. Varieties of the larger crystals include the 'double cross', clusters based on this twinned form, and exceedingly complex rosettes and hemispheres and blocky aggregates. Some specimens from Bundoora show drusy colourless crystals of phillipsite which often appear as pseudo-octagonal aggregates with cores of white powdery phillipsite. In freshly opened cavities, crystals of phillipsite are colourless to water-clear, but the larger crystals, like those of chabazite, soon become translucent to opaque-white when allowed to dehydrate upon exposure."

Description: "Spheroidal clusters up to 5 mm across, composed of octahedral crystals of pyrite have been found in association with mammillary calcite and aragonite at Bundoora."

Description: "Thomsonite often forms smooth, translucent, grey to pale brown hemispheres with a resinous lustre. The hemispheres are up to 3 mm in diameter and are composed of elongated plates which are exceedingly thin. Other forms include compact fibrous sheafs and tuffs which retain the grey translucent appearance of the globular form. The tips of these fibres sometimes appear as if they have been partly fused together. Hemispheres of thomsonite from Bundoora sometimes show secondary radiating needle and sheaf-like growths issuing from the surface. The needles show natrolite-like terminations."