There is a rock named after a town in the Crowsnest Pass, and it is one of the rarest on the planet: BLAIRMORITE, known from the Crowsnest Formation here and from a single locality in Mozambique, and from nowhere else at all. It is a porphyritic volcanic rock carrying dominant analcime crystals in a groundmass of analcime, sanidine and alkali pyroxene, with titanite, melanite and nepheline along for the ride, described either as a pale variety of analcimite or as an analcime-rich phonolite depending on which petrologist you ask. The analcime crystals grew at depth and only survived because the eruption threw them straight up and quenched them at the surface; almost all of this volcanism was explosive. The formation also throws volcanic bombs up to half a metre across, and platy grey sanidine crystals up to 2 centimetres sit inside them, with a single outcrop grading from analcime-dominant to sanidine-dominant over two or three metres. This is a place to understand and photograph rather than a fee dig: a great deal of the Crowsnest is private land, grazing lease or protected historic site, so establish whose ground you are on before a hammer comes out of the bag.
Blairmorite (analcime, sanidine, aegirine-augite)
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
