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So. #Quartz.
It’s most of Earth’s crust. If you’re only learning one mineral, quartz is a good default guess.
I can’t help with ID more than”uh, it’s hard?” unless it happens to be a pointy crystal, but I’ve never found those in the wild. It’s the white bits of granite.
It’s most of Earth’s crust. If you’re only learning one mineral, quartz is a good default guess.
I can’t help with ID more than”uh, it’s hard?” unless it happens to be a pointy crystal, but I’ve never found those in the wild. It’s the white bits of granite.
If you can’t grow it, you have to mine it.
#Quartz has rich friends. When hot fluids crystallize into veins filling rock cracks, it’s quartz ± precious minerals like silver & gold.
Gold lost in Round 1, but still. Quartz is important by association.
#Quartz has rich friends. When hot fluids crystallize into veins filling rock cracks, it’s quartz ± precious minerals like silver & gold.
Gold lost in Round 1, but still. Quartz is important by association.
Something handy about quartz is that if you hit it hard enough, it generates electricity.
#Quartz, #apatite (thus dry bones), cane sugar, #tourmaline, & a few other oddball materials are piezoelectric. Quartz crystals resonate at reliable frequency, making them good timekeepers.
#Quartz, #apatite (thus dry bones), cane sugar, #tourmaline, & a few other oddball materials are piezoelectric. Quartz crystals resonate at reliable frequency, making them good timekeepers.
Uh. Other neat things about quartz. I can do this...
It’s really common in rock shops & very cheap, #quartz crystals or dyed slices are often in childhood rock collections.
Quartz is a good paperweight, although typically a poor doorstop or bookend.
It’s really common in rock shops & very cheap, #quartz crystals or dyed slices are often in childhood rock collections.
Quartz is a good paperweight, although typically a poor doorstop or bookend.
Contaminated #quartz is amethyst, which is a pretty purple and named for not being drunk. Amethyst’s character arc in Steven Universe is another reason to give quartz a pity vote.
Baked quartz is citrine, a yellow someone must find pretty because it’s very popular.
Baked quartz is citrine, a yellow someone must find pretty because it’s very popular.
Oh! Along with being piezoelectric, #quartz is also triboluminescent: if you hit or break it, it’ll glow.
If you’re getting the idea that thumping on quartz is the best way to make it interesting, you’re not wrong.
If you’re getting the idea that thumping on quartz is the best way to make it interesting, you’re not wrong.
Meanwhile, #calcite quietly tracks sea temperature by trading off with its polymorph aragonite in seashells.
Détails:
Détails:
#Calcite is my scifi BFF of a mineral.
Along with quietly using it in Stargate, it’s one of the minerals I turned to for inspiration when working out mineralogical properties of the crystals in Star Wars lightsabers.
Along with quietly using it in Stargate, it’s one of the minerals I turned to for inspiration when working out mineralogical properties of the crystals in Star Wars lightsabers.
