mineral

Double Terminated Amethyst Crystal with Smoky Center-#AMTH04-4
January 12, 2023

Popular Purple Minerals

Everybody loves the color purple, a color has an old association with royalty.  The dye known Tyrian purple was a luxury item. …

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Moss Agate Opal
February 10, 2022

Organic Looking Moss Agate Use in Art

Moss agate is an un-banded (and therefore not a true) agate. It is a chalcedony with dendritic inclusions of other, typically green,…

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Yellow brucite (4.0 × 3.0 × 2.5 cm) from Killa Saifullah, Balochistan, Pakistan.
May 28, 2021

Gorgeous Yellow Brucite Crystal

Brucite is the mineral form of magnesium hydroxide named in 1824 by François Sulpice Beudant for its discoverer, American minerologist and chemist Archibald…

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Amethyst intaglio portrait of Julius Caesar, Roman, 50-40 B.C.E.
March 21, 2021

Beautiful Bejeweled Amethyst’s History as an Art Medium

The February birthstone is amethyst. A form of non-fluorescing hard stone quartz whose typically purple shading comes from irradiation of iron or…

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Malachite from Zaire
January 26, 2021

This Week’s Mineral Spotlight: Gorgeous Green Malachite

If the mineral is green and gorgeous there is a good chance it’s malachite. Like its copper cousins Turquoise, Azurite, and Chrysocolla,…

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