A statement from the agency notes that researchers from the Kola Science Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg State University, and the Fersman Mineralogical Museum discovered the mineral at the Kirovsk mine in the Khibiny Massif.

  Ashcroftine belongs to the silicate group; it is extremely rare, pink, transparent, and fragile. Its largest deposit is in Greenland, though it can also be found in Canada and Italy.

  Its composition includes yttrium, a rare-earth element. Therefore, it is not merely a beautiful stone but a veritable chemical archive of the Earth’s crust—yttrium, silicon, potassium, sodium, and a whole host of periodic table elements concentrated in a single crystal, the agency highlighted.

  The average price—”not even for an individual mineral specimen, but merely for its coating on the rock”—is 145 dollars per millimeter, the note specified, “which significantly exceeds the value of gold.”

  The agency added that the chemical composition of the discovered sample also includes calcium, manganese, and fluorine, making it truly unique. Furthermore, the structure of the discovered crystal belongs to the group of mineral structures known to science as the most complex.

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