The Crystal Mountain in Egypt (Photos)
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The Crystal Mountain in Egypt (Photos) |
The Crystal Mountain (28° 26' E and 27° 39' N) between the oasis Bahariya and Farafra, northern of the White Desert, Egypt.
The Crystals are probably Barite (Schwerspat, BaSO4) and/or Calcite crystals (CaCO3). The hill was opened during works at the road from Farafra to Bahariya by accident and destroyed in part.
The hill is not a paleokarst cave with columnar-shaped stalagmites. It is a subvolcanic vault, which was emerged probably during the Oligocene age. The visible layers are e.g. White Desert limestone of the Khoman Fm.* (Late Cretaceous age), as well as a younger coal seam and hydrothermal impregnated reddish to brownish ferruginous layers. The strata are broken or brecciated and intensely with each other folded.
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The Crystal Mountain in Egypt (Photos). Blue coloration by trace elements |
The Barite veins are widely distributed to the south of Gebel El Hafhuf which is composed of a rock sequence including sandstone, shale, limestone, phosphatic limestone and phosphatic calcareous sandstone. This succession is capped by the Oligo-Miocene basaltic sheet which takes the form of open circle of about 20 m thickness.
References:
The Geology of Egypt
The "Crystal Mountain" in Egypt by Norbert Brügge, Germany
Egypt-Cairo