This is a long, thin, slender lathe consisting of micro-granular Hematite crystals showing multiple iridescent colors. The colors on this piece are just fabulous with a kaleidoscope of hues featuring rich green, blue, magenta and yellow-green. They are in an elongate concentric pattern and resemble the rainbow of color from a gasoline spill. The color is caused by a nano scale mineral that is epitaxial growing on the Hematite grains and the mineral has not been approved or named by the IMA because of the difficulty of providing the physical data about such a small mineral and Dr. George Rossman has studied the mineral. A lovely piece of this Brazilian material. Rock Currier was able to import one container load of this material in 1992. This is one of the better pieces he kept for his personal collection out of TONNAGE! Rock's own words from his private catalog contain the above and a little more detail as well: "A container load (about 15 tons) of the iridescent material was collected and imported into the United States and distributed to many different mineral dealers. The material was mostly confined to one dealer and the locality that was given out for the fine was Belo Horizonte. No more accurate information was given out at the time to protect the commercial interests of a number of individuals and to keep the mine from being inundated by people wanting to get some of the material. Many years have passed and the dealer (Rock Currier) feels that it is time that the detailed locality should be set forth for posterity sake. This was a one-time occurrence, not because the material was exhausted in the mine, but because the mining of this small amount of material disrupted the mining plan of the mine and management decided that a small sale like this one was not worth their time and effort. As an interesting aside, the mining company on occasion would scoop up a truckload or two of this colorful material and scatter it on the streets of a local small town on the occasion of a particular festival. Much to the importers' amazement, the material was also used in fashion jewelry. The importer never thought of it in terms of being anything other than 'color rock'." -Rock Currier, 2010 on Mindat.org