Smoky quartz
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Smoky quartz or Smokey quartz is a brown to black variety of quartz caused through the natural (or artificial) irradiation of aluminium-containing rock crystal.[1]
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[edit] Varieties
[edit] Morion
A very dark brown to black opaque variety is known as morion. Morion is the German, Danish, Spanish and Polish synonym for smoky quartz.[2]
[edit] Cairngorm
Cairngorm is a variety of smoky quartz crystal found in the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland. It usually has a smokey yellow-brown colour, though some specimens are a grey-brown.
Like other quartz gems, it is a silicon dioxide crystal, with a small amount of ferric oxide impurity which gives it the characteristic colour.
It is used in Scottish jewellery and as a decoration on kilt pins and the handles of sgian dubhs (anglicised: skean dhu). The largest known cairngorm crystal is a 23.6 kg (52 pound) specimen kept at Braemar Castle.
 Morion from Poland |
 Morion from Ukraina |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.mindat.org/show.php?id=3689 Smoky Quartz on Mindat
- ^ http://www.mindat.org/min-6270.html Morion on Mindat
- Holden, Edward (1925). "The Cause of Color in Smoky Quartz and Amethyst" in American Mineralologist, vol. 9, pp. 203-252
[edit] External links
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