Adventurer and crystal enthusiast Patrick Gundersen made a stunning discovery in the Australian outback, unearthing a spectacular quartz crystal hidden in a pile of dirt.
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Gundersen, who shares his finds on his Instagram @crystals_of_australia, posted a video showing the gem. “It weighs around 2kg and could easily be worth several thousand dollars due to the striking rare formation of the piece and size of it,” he told NTD.
“I’ve never seen anything quite like it from anywhere,” he said.
What first appears to be just a chunk of rock transforms as he pulls it from the earth, revealing a large, fully intact crystal. Once cleaned, the gem’s true, striking beauty was fully revealed.
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The crystal is an elestial quartz, identifiable by its clear-white body and purple amethyst tip, along with secondary growth patterns.
“Although I have found crystals in this particular area before, I’ve never seen one this size,” Gundersen told NTD. What makes it unique is its “striking etchings and growth markings along the sides of it and then tipped with a perfect amethyst crystal on top.”
“Not only are these crystals rare for Australia but I’d say also on a worldwide scale too,” Gundersen said.
“These particular crystals come from Quartz veins in metamorphic rocks,” he explains. “Due to tens of thousands of years of weathering and erosion, almost all the crystals lying on the surface have been broken down into tiny fragments.” To a trained eye, however, these fragments can function as clues to help locate intact crystals still hidden underneath the dirt.
“This is the only place in Australia that has these rare formations of Quartz,” said Gundersen, who discovered the remarkable quartz crystal in the secluded Harts Range of Australia’s Northern Territory.
A lifelong rockhound, Gundersen’s fascination with crystals began in childhood when he and his best friend would scour the ground for tiny quartz crystals. This passion led him to explore Australia’s vast outback in his teenage years, where he continued his fossicking adventures as he prospects for crystals and precious stones.
“Ever since I was a child I was fascinated by colors,” he wrote on his Instagram account. “I’d even ask my mum to grab those paint charts from the hardware shop so I could cut them up into little squares and arrange the colors into different patterns.”
One day when he was around 8 years old, his mom took him to a rock shop where he found a small Amethyst crystal that became the genesis of his crystal collection next to his bed.
What began as a hobby soon grew into a passion, taking him from local spots to long treks in the remote Flinders Ranges. Often relying on his intuition during his searches, he said, “I’d frequently hike with no set direction, simply following where it ‘felt right’ to go.”
Whether or not he found crystals on his outings, he always returned in good spirits.
“There were plenty of times I was rewarded for my efforts and found some incredible crystals and there were equally many times where I would come home empty-handed but still just as grateful for my time in nature,” he said.