I love rocks. They are probably my favourite thing to do research on. So let’s get right to it! Opals are 1 kind of rock/gem*. They come in many different colours, like red, white or light blue. But what makes the “Opal ” special, is that when you hold it up to the light, it glows different colours! The “Opal ” is also the second strongest material on earth. The “Opal” is most commonly found in Coober Pedy, Australia.
The ”Amethyst” is a purple variety of quartz, which you will learn about later, and owes its violet colour 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.
The heaviest “amethyst” ever mined weighed 2.5 tonnes. That’s about as heavy as 5 grand pianos!
“Quartz” is also an energy source. The electrical reaction can be created by applying a charge, physical stress, or heat. Quartz is also distinguished as a gem that is capable of triboluminescence, or the ability to create light under pressure. Some different kinds of “quartz” are “strawberry quartz” and “milk quartz”. The heaviest quartz ever mined was 14,100 kg. That’s about 3 and a half hippopotamuses! Isn’t that awesome?
”Emerald” is a gemstone and a variety of the mineral beryl colored green by trace amounts of chromium and/or sometimes vanadium. Beryl has a hardness of 7.5–8 on the Mohs scale. Most emeralds are highly included, so their toughness is classified as generally poor. The heaviest emerald ever mined was 1,505 g. That’s as heavy as 2 bricks! It gets cooler every time!
“Turquoise” is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrated phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula CuAl6(PO4)4(OH) 8· 4H2O. It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gemstone and ornamental stone for thousands of years owing to its unique hue. The heaviest turquoise weighed 225 kg. That’s as heavy as a bit less than 2 horses! Sapphire is a precious gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, consisting of aluminium oxide with trace amounts of elements such as iron, titanium, chromium, vanadium, or magnesium. The name sapphire is derived from the Latin “saphirus” and the Greek “sappheiros”, both of which mean blue. Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. At room temperature and pressure, another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon, but diamond converts to it extremely slow.
*Gem is short for gemstone
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To end this blog post, I would like to say that I had a lot of fun gathering these facts. Thank you for reading!