Fluorite Photos
Cochise College               
Photos of Minerals
Virtual Geology Museum      Hall of Minerals

Geology Home Page

Roger Weller, geology instructor

wellerr@cochise.edu    copyright 2008-R.Weller

 
fluorite-octahedron cleavage
Fluorite is one of the few minerals that have four directions of cleavage.  If a crystal of fluorite is
carefully cleaved so that the resulting form has faces of equal size and shape, an octahedron with
8 faces is formed.  Miners who worked in the Cave-in-Rock fluorite district of southern Illinois used
to spend their free time during lunch hours cleaving fluorite into collectible octahedrons.
 

fluorite
Photo is copyright free for non-commercial educational uses.
Just credit photo to R.Weller/Cochise College.

Specimen from Cochise College collection
cochise142