Catalog Search Guide
You can search our catalog using different mineral attributes. For example, you can search by color such as green, yellow or purple, or by chemical elements such as uranium, calcium or iron, or by mineral groups such as phosphate, silicate or carbonate. You can also filter by crystal habit like crystal, geode or crystal on matrix, by specimen size such as thumbnail, small, medium or cabinet, and by features such as radioactive or fluorescent minerals.
Faden Quartz
Faden Quartz is a rare growth variety of quartz (SiO2) instantly recognizable by the thin, white, thread-like line — the "faden" (German for thread) — that runs through the length of an otherwise transparent crystal. This feature forms when a crystal growing inside a slowly widening fissure repeatedly fractures and heals as the host rock pulls apart, leaving behind a scar of fluid inclusions that traces the entire history of the opening fracture.
The classic source is the Alps, particularly historic Alpine cleft localities such as La Table in Savoie, France, and Swiss finds often associated with Gwindel quartz. Today the finest and most abundant material comes from South Waziristan and the Dera Ismail Khan District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, where water-clear, doubly terminated crystals — sometimes stacked into dramatic towers or paired with brookite and chlorite inclusions — are prized by collectors worldwide. Other notable occurrences include the Big Bertha Mine in La Paz County, Arizona.
Collectors seek Faden Quartz for its sculptural, almost architectural habit: flattened, tabular or platy crystals bridging the gap where a fracture once opened, each one a frozen record of tectonic movement. Fine specimens combine gemmy transparency, sharp terminations, and a bold, unbroken faden line, making this one of the most geologically fascinating and visually striking quartz varieties in any mineral collection.
