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Garnet
Garnets () are a group of silicate minerals that have been used since the Bronze Age as gemstones and abrasives. Garnet minerals, while sharing similar physical and crystallographic properties, exhibit a wide range of chemical compositions, defining distinct species. These species fall into two primary solid solution series: the pyralspite series (pyrope, almandine, spessartine), with the general formula [Mg,Fe,Mn]3Al2(SiO4)3; and the ugrandite series (uvarovite, grossular, andradite), with the general formula Ca3[Cr,Al,Fe]2(SiO4)3. Notable varieties of grossular include Grossular#Hessonite, hessonite and tsavorite. Etymology The word ''garnet'' comes from the 14th-century Middle English word ''gernet'', meaning 'dark red'. It is borrowed from Old French ''grenate'' from Latin language, Latin ''granatus,'' from ''granum'' ('grain, seed'). This is possibly a reference to ''mela granatum'' or even ''pomum granatum'' ('pomegranate', ''Punica granatum''), a plant whose fruits conta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pyrope
The mineral pyrope is a member of the garnet group. Pyrope is the only member of the garnet family to always display red colouration in natural samples, and it is from this characteristic that it gets its name: from the Greek words for ''fire'' and ''eye''. Despite being less common than most garnets, it is a widely used gemstone with numerous alternative names, some of which are misnomers. ''Chrome pyrope'', and ''Bohemian garnet'' are two alternative names, the usage of the latter being discouraged by the Gemological Institute of America.(Gia), Gemological. Gem Reference Guide. City: Gemological Institute of America (GIA), 1988. Misnomers include ''Colorado ruby'', ''Arizona ruby'', ''California ruby'', ''Rocky Mountain ruby'', ''Elie Ruby'', ''Bohemian carbuncle'', and ''Cape ruby''. Composition The composition of pure pyrope is Mg3Al2(SiO4)3, although typically other elements are present in at least minor proportions—these other elements include Ca, Cr, Fe and Mn. Py ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grossular
Grossular is a calcium-aluminium species of the garnet group of minerals. It has the chemical formula of Ca3Al2(SiO4)3 but the calcium may, in part, be replaced by ferrous iron and the aluminium by ferric iron. The name grossular is derived from the botanical name for the gooseberry, ''grossularia'', in reference to the green garnet of this composition that is found in Siberia. Other shades include cinnamon brown (cinnamon stone variety), red, and yellow. Grossular is a gemstone. In geological literature, grossular has often been called ''grossularite''. Since 1971, however, use of the term grossularite for the mineral has been discouraged by the International Mineralogical Association. Hessonite Hessonite or "cinnamon stone" is a common variety of grossular with the general formula: Ca3Al2Si3O12. The name comes from the (hēssōn), meaning ''inferior''; an allusion to its lower hardness and lower density than most other garnet species varieties. It has a characteristic red ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Almandine
Almandine (), also known as almandite, is a mineral belonging to the garnet group. The name is a corruption of alabandicus, which is the name applied by Pliny the Elder to a stone found or worked at Alabanda, a town in Caria in Asia Minor. Almandine is an iron aluminum garnet, of deep red color, inclining to purple. It is frequently cut with a convex face, or en cabochon, and is then known as carbuncle. Viewed through the spectroscope in a strong light, it generally shows three characteristic absorption bands. Almandine is one end-member of a mineral solid solution series, with the other end member being the garnet pyrope. The almandine crystal formula is: Fe3Al2(SiO4)3. Magnesium substitutes for the iron with increasingly pyrope-rich composition. Almandine, , is the ferrous iron end member of the class of garnet minerals representing an important group of rock-forming silicates, which are the main constituents of the Earth's crust, upper mantle and transition zone. Alman ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spessartine
Spessartine is a nesosilicate, manganese aluminium garnet species, Mn2+3Al2(SiO4)3. Gemological Institute of America, ''GIA Gem Reference Guide'' 1995, This mineral is sometimes mistakenly referred to as ''spessartite''. Spessartine's name is a derivative of Spessart in Bavaria, Germany, the type locality of the mineral. It occurs most often in granite pegmatite and allied rock types and in certain low-grade metamorphic phyllites. Sources include Australia, Myanmar, India, Afghanistan, Israel, Madagascar, Namibia, Nigeria, Mozambique, Tanzania and the United States. Spessartine of an orange-yellow has been called ''Mandarin garnet'' and is found in Madagascar. Violet-red spessartines are found in rhyolites in Colorado and Maine. In Madagascar, spessartines are exploited either in their bedrock or in alluvium. The orange garnets result from sodium-rich pegmatites. Spessartines are found in bedrock in the highlands in the Sahatany valley. Those in alluvium are generally found ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uvarovite
Uvarovite is a chromium-bearing garnet group species with the formula: Ca3 Cr2( Si O4)3. It was discovered in 1832 by Germain Henri Hess who named it after Count Sergei Uvarov (1765–1855), a Russian statesman and amateur mineral collector. It is classified in the ugrandite group alongside the other calcium-bearing garnets andradite and grossular. Uvarovite is the rarest of the common members of the garnet group, and is the only consistently green garnet species, with an emerald-green color. It occurs as well-formed fine-sized crystals. Occurrence Uvarovite most commonly occurs in solid solution with grossular or andradite, and is generally found associated with serpentinite, chromite, metamorphic limestones, and skarn ore-bodies. File:garnet.uvarovite.500pix.jpg, Pendant in uvarovite, a rare bright-green garnet. The long dimension is 2 cm (0.8 inch) The most significant source of uvarovite historically has been a now-closed copper mine at Outokumpu, Finland, f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andradite
Andradite is a Mineralogy, mineral species of the Garnet, garnet group. It is a Silicate minerals#Nesosilicates, nesosilicate, with chemical formula Ca3Fe2Si3O12. Andradite includes three varieties: * ''Colophonite'': a historical variety found in the Scandinavian islands, brownish or reddish in color, often opaque or translucent.''Olga Bortnik''. All about precious stones. ― Moscow: Harvest, 2011. * ''Demantoid'': Vivid green in color, one of the most valuable and rare stones in the gemology, gemological world. * ''Melanite'': Black in color due to limited substitution of titanium for iron. Also known as "titanian andradite". Forms a solid solution with morimotoite and schorlomite depending on titanium and iron content. Mindat.org * ''Topazolite'': Yellow-green in color and sometimes of high enough quality to be cut into a faceted gemstone, it is rarer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tsavorite
Tsavorite or tsavolite is a variety of the garnet group species grossular, a calcium-aluminium garnet with the formula Ca3 Al2 Si3 O12. Trace amounts of vanadium or chromium provide the green color. In 1967, British gem prospector and geologist Campbell R. Bridges discovered a deposit of green grossular in the mountains of Simanjiro District of Manyara Region of north-east Tanzania in a place called Lemshuko, away from Komolo, the first village. The specimens he found were of very intense color and of high transparency. The find interested the gem trade, and attempts were made to export the stones, but the Tanzanian government did not provide permits. Believing that the deposit was a part of a larger geological structure extending possibly into Kenya, Bridges began prospecting in that nation. He was successful a second time in 1971, when he found the mineral variety there, and was granted a permit to mine the deposit. The gemstone was known only to mineral specialists unti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vitreous Lustre
Lustre (Commonwealth English) or luster (American English; see spelling differences) is the way light interacts with the surface of a crystal, rock, or mineral. The word traces its origins back to the Latin ''lux'', meaning "light", and generally implies radiance, gloss, or brilliance. A range of terms are used to describe lustre, such as ''earthy'', ''metallic'', ''greasy'', and ''silky''. Similarly, the term ''vitreous'' (derived from the Latin for glass, ''vitrum'') refers to a glassy lustre. A list of these terms is given below. Lustre varies over a wide continuum, and so there are no rigid boundaries between the different types of lustre. (For this reason, different sources can often describe the same mineral differently. This ambiguity is further complicated by lustre's ability to vary widely within a particular mineral species). The terms are frequently combined to describe intermediate types of lustre (for example, a "vitreous greasy" lustre). Some minerals exhib ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhombic Dodecahedron
In geometry, the rhombic dodecahedron is a Polyhedron#Convex_polyhedra, convex polyhedron with 12 congruence (geometry), congruent rhombus, rhombic face (geometry), faces. It has 24 edge (geometry), edges, and 14 vertex (geometry), vertices of 2 types. As a Catalan solid, it is the dual polyhedron of the cuboctahedron. As a parallelohedron, the rhombic dodecahedron can be used to Honeycomb (geometry), tesselate its copies in space creating a rhombic dodecahedral honeycomb. There are some variations of the rhombic dodecahedron, one of which is the Bilinski dodecahedron. There are some stellations of the rhombic dodecahedron, one of which is the Escher's solid. The rhombic dodecahedron may also appear in nature (such as in the garnet crystal), the architectural philosophies, practical usages, and toys. As a Catalan solid Metric properties The rhombic dodecahedron is a polyhedron with twelve rhombus, rhombi, each of which long face-diagonal length is exactly \sqrt times the sho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
