NatroliteCairns Bay, Flinders, Victoria, Australia
Latitude: 38°29'12"S
Longitude: 144°58'0"E
Colorless to white or pink trapezohedra of analcime, to 8 mm in diameter, are very abundant with some crystals up to 2 cm across, in the highly vesicular Eocene olivine basalt flows of the Older Basalt found along the coastline of the Mornington Peninsula between Flinders and Cape Schanck, particularly at Cairns Bay (= Simmons Bay) and Little Bird Rock (Birch, 1976; Coulsell, 1980; Birch, 1988b; Hall, 1989). Analcime is the first zeolite to crystallize in the cavities (preceded only by montmorillonite) and is commonly covered by gmelinite/chabazite intergrowths, natrolite, thomsonite, copper, aragonite, calcite, or dolomite (Birch, 1988b). Rarely, tiny analcime crystals are found on natrolite and calcite (Hall, 1989). Analcime, cowlesite, levyne-offretite, chabazite, and montmorillonite are found in vesicular basalt at Carins Bay, near Flinders (Birch, 1988a). In the Cairns Bay and Little Bird Rock areas, it is believed that zeolites forming near the surface of an older basalt flow were covered and reheated by a younger flow (Rew, 1969). The reheating partly dissolved existing zeolites and redeposited new minerals as the solutions cooled.
Mineral List
24 entries listed. 20 valid minerals.
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References
Tschernich, R. (1992): Zeolites of the World, p.49
King, V. and Chenelatto, M., 2011, History of Ledererite. A Crystallographic Variety of Gmelinite, Mineral News, v. 27, p. 1-2, 5-7.
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