Smoky quartz
Smoky or smokey quartz is a brown to black variety of quartz.[1] Like other quartz gems, it is a silicon dioxide crystal. The smoky colour results from free silicon, formed from the silicon dioxide by natural irradiation.
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Varieties [edit]
Morion [edit]
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] The name is from a misreading of mormorion in Pliny the Elder.[3]
Cairngorm [edit]
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.
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.
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Another example of smoky quartz
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Smoky quartz found in a stream
Uses [edit]
Sunglasses, in the form of flat panes of smoky quartz, were used in China in the 12th century.[4]
See also [edit]
References [edit]
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Wikisource has original text related to this article: |
- ^ Smoky Quartz on Mindat
- ^ http://www.mindat.org/min-6270.html Morion on Mindat
- ^ New Oxford American Dictionary (2nd ed., 2005), p. 1102.
- ^ Joseph Needham, Science & Civilisation in China (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1962), volume IV, part 1, page 121. Needham states that dark glasses were worn by Chinese judges to hide their facial expressions during court proceedings.
- Holden, Edward (1925). "The Cause of Color in Smoky Quartz and Amethyst" in American Mineralologist, vol. 9, pp. 203-252
External links [edit]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Smoky quartz |
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