One is by the location where people mine it, giving it a place name to distinguish it. How Is Amethyst Formed? (And How It Gets Its Color).Brazil and Uruguay provide most of the amethyst currently on the market, but you can find it in many places, including Siberia and Sri Lanka. As quartz, it has a hardness of 7 on the Mohs scale.Īmethyst is famous for forming clusters, large crystals, and geodes. When meeting underground radiation, the stone turns to a glorious purple. Mostly, the purple color comes from iron oxide (rust) trapped in the stone. Over a great number of years, amethyst (or other crystals) form inside.Īmethyst starts as quartz with trace amounts of iron in it, along with other trace minerals. Gradually, the silica-rich liquid slowly flows in. The lava cools, leaving these pockets behind. The Pingyi Geode is the largest amethyst geode, measuring nearly ten feet long, nearly six feet wide, and over seven feet thick. These bubbles can be tiny, or as large as the geode found in Pingyi, China. When lava flows from a volcano, it cools with many air bubbles inside of it. And most fluorite has cubic or octahedral crystals. Most fluorite will glow under a black light. It is a softer stone and dissolves in water. How to Identify a Fluoriteįluorite comes in a variety of colors, of which purple is common. We use most of these lenses for microscopes because they tend to be small, coming from a natural facet. You can make excellent lenses from thin slices of fluorite. It helps in smelting iron, bringing down the melting temperature of iron. Both fluorine and fluoride come from fluorite. In the US, we make most fluorite into hydrofluoric acid (HF), which is used in creating many chemicals, and aluminum fluoride (AlF3), for making aluminum. You can grind it down to make fluoride for toothpaste. In the past, people called fluorite fluorspar, but today we reserve this word for industrially used stone.įluorite is useful in several forms. Lead ore (galena) can frequently be found nearby. They also find it as a vein deposit in limestone and it sometimes colors marble. Geologists often find it in granitic pegmatites. How Is Fluorite Formed?įluorite formed late in the geological processes which created igneous rocks, because of its low melting point. The large and varied crystals, range of colors, and fluorescence all make this mineral popular. Most fluorite will glow or fluoresce under black light. Fluorite comes in many crystal forms, including cubes, octahedrons, and more forms. It forms at shallower depths and cooler conditions than amethyst.įluorite is a common stone, but most commercial fluorite comes from China, Morocco, and Illinois. The word fluorescence comes from fluoride, not the other way around.Ĭalcium fluorite (CaF2) is one of the halide minerals. It got this name because it melts easily. The name comes from the Latin fluere, which means to flow. Purple fluorite can look a lot like amethyst, and we will help you determine which purple stone you have, lower in this article. Greens, blues, and browns are also common. Fluorite is a stone of many colors, one of which is purple.
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