An Ethiopian opal chip bracelet on top of some other gem chip bracelets. It has a milky blueish glow, and the stones are flecked with inner rainbow colours which change in the light.
I wish I could better photograph for you the INCREDIBLE MAGICAL BEAUTY of this opal chip bracelet I was given for Christmas 😍💎 I am totally in love 💚 #gems #crystals #RockOfTheWeek
A bracelet in my palm, made from teardrop-shaped Ethiopian black opal beads and tiny round silver beads. Though the opals are mainly very dark in colour, they glint with reds, pinks, greens, golds, and blues in the light.
Close on some of the teardrop-shaped black opal beads, showing their play of colour.
Close on some of the teardrop-shaped black opal beads, showing their play of colour.
#RockOfTheWeek is opal, thanks to a little early birthday present to myself... Opal is silicon dioxide (like quartz) plus water, and is amorphous (no crystalline structure, similar to glass) but iridesces with hidden colours thanks to tightly packed silica nanospheres! Amazing! 😍💚💎 #Gems #Minerals
Raw Blue John specimen in my hand. It's formed of long parallel crystals, like fibres, running from top to bottom, and it's orange at the top with a strong purple band across the middle, and more subtle orange/purplish banding below. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_John_(mineral)
Raw Blue John specimen in my hand. It's formed of long parallel crystals, like fibres, running from top to bottom, and it's orange at the top with a strong purple band across the middle, and more subtle orange/purplish banding below.
Close up. Raw Blue John specimen in my hand. It's formed of long parallel crystals, like fibres, running from top to bottom, and it's orange at the top with a strong purple band across the middle, and more subtle orange/purplish banding below. #crystals
#RockOfTheWeek, for its autumny orange-purple vibes, is Blue John, a rare blue-banded fluorite only found in Derbyshire! The blue colour is caused not chemically but physically, by a disturbance in the arrangement of its atoms known as #crystal lattice dislocation. #Minerals #Gems #AmazingNature 💚💎
Large grey pebble with wavy and uneven off-white streaks that come and go across the width of the rock, all running the same direction but not strictly parallel.
Large wet grey pebble with wavy and uneven off-white streaks that come and go across the width of the rock, all running the same direction but not strictly parallel.
Large grey pebble with wavy and uneven off-white streaks that come and go across the width of the rock, all running the same direction but not strictly parallel.
Large grey pebble with wavy and uneven off-white streaks that come and go across the width of the rock, all running the same direction but not strictly parallel.
#RockOfTheWeek is this striking pebble found on a Wales beach. My best guess (and I'm v happy to be corrected!) is that it's humble mudstone with fractures infilled with quartz. Whatever it is, it's a gorgeous and unusual specimen! #Rocks #Minerals #Rockhounding 😍💚💎
Two carnelians in my hand, both varying shades of dark orange. The left one is rough, uncut and unpolished as you might find in nature. The right one, larger, is a polished oval pebble.
A necklace, round my neck, featuring a polished carnelian in smooth dark orange, wrapped in tiny copper oak leaves and wire. It's on a copper chain.
#RockOfTheWeek is carnelian, a type of chalcedony coloured with iron oxides, and one of the few semi-precious gems you can find in the UK. (Chalcedony is a mix of quartz and moganite, which are both silicon dioxide but with different crystal structures.) Another favourite of mine 😍💚💎 #gems #minerals
A blue apatite chip bracelet and semi-polished stone, in the palm of my hand, both brilliant greenish blue, though the bracelet is brighter. #crystals #minerals #gems
Close-up on the blue apatite stone - greenish blue with rough, uneven faces, and a tiny gold inclusion showing in a crack - perhaps pyrite.
My #RockOfTheWeek is this blue apatite specimen from a gem shop on hol. The bracelet was one of my first, but I've been wearing it lots as it matches my new fave skirt 😄 A calcium phosphate mineral, it's too soft to polish well for jewellery, but apatites occur in bones & teeth, and on the moon! 😯💎💚
A squarish polished pebble in the palm of my hand. It's primarily white with a blackish marbled effect, but there are lots of angular pink crystals within it.
Close up, showing the pink crystals, and smaller crystal structures visible in the white part.
The same stone under a UV torch beam. The pink crystals glow flourescent pink, as if lit from within!
As I've been playing with a UV torch (scorpion-spotting!), #RockOfTheWeek is this ruby in albite tumblestone. Albite is a feldspar, ruby is a corundum - both #minerals need aluminium & oxygen to form, & occur together in metamorphic rock. See what happens under UV! #gems #crystals #AmazingNature 💎💚
A citrine crystal cluster, with several crystal points, on a wooden table. It's pale yellow, like white wine, with some parts very pale and others yellower. Orangey iron residues are visible on some surfaces.
#RockOfTheWeek is citrine - a sunny stone for the #solstice! It's also my birthstone and one I like to wear a lot 😊 Citrine is a variety of quartz (silicone dioxide) coloured yellow by iron, and rare in nature. #Minerals #Gems #Crystals #AmazingNature 💚💎
A crystal-shaped stone in my hand, about 9cm tall - a hexagonal tower shaped to a point on top. It's marked all over with streaks and spots of browns, reds and greys.
#RockOfTheWeek is leopard skin jasper - which is actually a type of rhyolite, a volcanic igneous rock made up of feldspar and quartz, with orbicular inclusions stained with iron and other brown/red #minerals. #AmazingNature 💚💎 #crystals
A tumbled stone on a wooden table. It's mainly bright green and turquoise, with some small patches of yellow-green and darker blue.
A tumbled stone on a wooden table. It's mainly bright green and turquoise, with some small patches of yellow-green and darker blue.
A tumbled stone on a wooden table. It's mainly bright green and turquoise, with some small patches of yellow-green and darker blue.
#RockOfTheWeek Can't stop admiring this utterly gorgeous piece of chrysocolla I picked up in the Crystals shop in Gloucester 😍💎💚 #amazingnature #minerals #crystals It gets its amazing colours mainly from copper, and is hydrous - contains water.
Slice of rhodochrosite: pink stone formed in wavy bands, with thinner white bands running through it.
Slice of rhodochrosite against a blue sky - light coming through the pink parts!
Haven't done this for ages...
but I can't stop ogling this beauty. #Rockoftheweek is this slice of rhodochrosite. The pink colour comes from manganese - it's a manganese carbonate mineral. The white bands are calcite, I believe. 💚 #amazingnature #littlejoys
