

The greek origin name which roughly means ’bearded envoy’, was given by Horace Bénédict de Saussure swiss geologist, physicist and alpinist in 1796. It is an interesting, asbestos like variety of actinolite which is a member of the amphibole group. Byssolite usually issues in fibrous, stringy, ’hair like’ thin crystals. In the Alps it can be found mostly in metamorphic (transformed) splits of limestone, commonly with epidote. One of its best locations is in Austria Knappenwand, (Untersulzbach valley, Hohe Tauern, Salzburg state). Beside the countries of the Alps (Italy, France, Austria, Switzerland etc.) it can be located in Spain, Pourtugal, the USA and Pakistan.