Why are there different types of quartz?

Color is due to iron impurities and mineral inclusions (chlorite). Transparent brown or gray. Its color is due to “holes” of missing electrons in combination with aluminum impurities. Black smoky quartz, almost opaque.

How many different colors can quartz have?

Main Varieties of Quartz Rock crystal is white, citrine yellow, amethyst purple and rose quartz is pink. Brown or green transparent varieties are also available. One variety, ametrine, is part purple and part yellow. An example of citrine quartz crystal.

What gives quartz its many beautiful colors?

Quartz is found as large crystals that are often beautifully colored by impurities. The many varieties of quartz are due to formation of different geometric arrangements of its tetrahedral crystals. This accounts for different crystal structures, and, therefore, different physical properties.

Is blue quartz dyed?

Natural blue quartz is always colored by inclusions of other minerals, not by trace elements or color centers, so it is never transparent, just translucent.

What causes rose color in quartz?

Growers produce pink color in transparent synthetic quartz by growing it with impurities of aluminum and phosphorous. Some of these impurities replace silicon in the quartz lattice. Subsequent irradiation produces color centers that give the crystal its pink color.

Can quartz be purple?

Amethyst is a purple variety of quartz (SiO2) and owes its violet color to irradiation, impurities of iron and in some cases other transition metals, and the presence of other trace elements, which result in complex crystal lattice substitutions.

Is there a blue quartz?

Blue quartz is uncommon, but there are both natural and manmade versions of the stone in circulation. No crystals that look like regular or rose quartz have ever been found in nature in the shade of blue. Natural blue quartz is far less obvious, more solid and less unanimous in color.

Is black quartz valuable?

Smokey quartz (also spelled smoky) is a very valuable variety, which comes in all ranges of browns of equal value. You can find tan smokey quartz or an almost completely black variety.