Kyanite

Kyanite forms blue to blue gray to barely bluish gray bladed crystals. Most mineral shops sell sky-blue samples from Brazil. Most samples you'd find in the wild are blue only in the eyes of a geologist. The bladed habit is more distinctive than the color.

This is a classic sample of kyanite. The crystals are blue and have what is called a bladed habit (shape).

Most of the surrounding rock is quartz; the orange is iron staining and the white is paint.

Here you see more typical kyanite crystals. They still have a bladed habit, but they are a blue-gray color.

It is common to see several kyanite blades radiating out from a single point (e.g., left side of sample).

Most of the rest of the sample is muscovite.

The large deep purplish red garnets catch the eye, but the smaller bluish gray platy crystals are kyanite. It is harder to see their bladed habit in this photo, but if you look around the specimen (click to enlarge!) you can see it well-displayed here and there.

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