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Fakes & FraudsHilutite/Hilutit

21st May 2014 19:22 UTCKristi Hugs

Someone asked me about this today and I had never heard of it, so of course, I am coming to the experts. One site says it was found in 2009, another says 2004. It is supposedly a combination of Goethite, Quartz, Zircon and Garnet. All four are common enough, but I suppose the combination has warranted it a "SUPER RARE!!!" title. The fact that it was sent to four testers and none of them could ID its contents but a fifth could? sends up a red flag for me. Of course, I could be way off the mark. I found one site that explained what it is, but again, I am just not sure this is legit. Help? s http://www.hilutit.com/informations.html

21st May 2014 19:46 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

Sounds like quartz with some inclusions of zircon,garnet and goethite, nothing mineralogically unusual about that. However, I guess it depends on how you define "rare". Probably 99.9% of quartz does not have such inclusions and therefore you could call it rare, but then you can make the same argument for hundreds if not thousands of combinations of other minerals as well.

21st May 2014 19:54 UTCDavid Von Bargen Manager

Professional mineralogists tend to frown on people naming things like a mineral that are not minerals. It seems to be a mixture of 4 minerals (things like that are generally called rocks). If you try and do an X-ray of the thing, you wind up with all the peaks of the four minerals combined and those type of things are pretty hard to sort out if you are not expecting it.

A bit overpriced hype like usual.

21st May 2014 20:03 UTCKristi Hugs

Thanks so much!! It is nice to have wiser minds prevail when stuff is as confusing as it can be. I am truly grateful for your help!!