Elk Creek, South Dakota, USA
7.7 x 7.5 x 4.8 cm
Elk Creek is known worldwide as a unique locality for barite. It produces a wonderful "root beer" color crystal. Mining these specimens is extremely difficult because they form in concretions and the host rock is very hard. Also, according to the miner, only about 10% of the concretions contain barite specimens and only a very small percentage of those mined produce excellent "root beer" colored gem crystals. The miners have had to develop special diamond saws to extract as many undamaged crystals as possible. Fine specimens from this locality are are a rarity.
Photo Credit: Joe Budd
