Smoky quartz is a brownish grey, translucent variety of

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical f ...

that ranges in clarity from almost complete transparency to an almost-opaque brownish-gray or black crystals. The smoky color results from free silicon formed from the silicon dioxide by natural irradiation.

Varieties

Morion is a very dark brown to black opaque variety. Morion is the German, Danish, Spanish and Polish synonym for smoky quartz. The name is from a misreading of ''mormorion'' in

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...

. Cairngorm is a variety of smoky quartz found in the

Cairngorm Mountains The Cairngorms ( gd, Am Monadh Ruadh) are a mountain range in the eastern Highlands of Scotland closely associated with the mountain Cairn Gorm. The Cairngorms became part of Scotland's second national park (the Cairngorms National Park) on 1 ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

. It usually has a smoky yellow-brown colour, though some specimens are greyish-brown. It is used in Scottish

jewellery Jewellery ( UK) or jewelry ( U.S.) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. From a w ...

and as a decoration on

kilt A kilt ( gd, fèileadh ; Irish: ''féileadh'') is a garment resembling a wrap-around knee-length skirt, made of twill woven worsted wool with heavy pleats at the sides and back and traditionally a tartan pattern. Originating in the Scottish ...

pins and the handles of (

anglicised Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influen ...

: ''

sgian-dubh The ( ; ) – also anglicized as skene – is a small, single-edged knife ( gd, sgian) worn as part of traditional Scottish Highland dress along with the kilt. Originally used for eating and preparing fruit, meat, and cutting bread and cheese, ...

s'' or ''skean dhu''). The largest known cairngorm crystal is a specimen kept at Braemar Castle.

Uses

Smoky quartz is common and was not historically important, but in recent times it has become a popular

gemstone A gemstone (also called a fine gem, jewel, precious stone, or semiprecious stone) is a piece of mineral crystal which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments. However, certain rocks (such as lapis lazuli, opal, ...

, especially for

jewelry Jewellery ( UK) or jewelry ( U.S.) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. From a w ...

Sunglasses Sunglasses or sun glasses (informally called shades or sunnies; more names Sunglasses#Other names, below) are a form of Eye protection, protective eyewear designed primarily to prevent bright sunlight and high-energy visible light from damagin ...

, in the form of flat panes of smoky quartz, were used in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

in the 12th century.Joseph Needham, Science & Civilisation in China (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1962), volume IV, part 1, page 121. Needham states that dark glasses were worn by Chinese judges to hide their facial expressions during court proceedings.

Gallery

File:Quarzo morione.jpg, Morion variety File:Metazeunerite-Quartz-201156.jpg, Crystals of metazeunerite perched on a complete smoky quartz crystal File:Smoky quartz 01.jpg, Smoky quartz found in a stream File:Garnet, quartz, feldspar 8.jpg, Smoky quartz, from Wushan Spessartine Mine, Fujian Province, China File:Quartz-162749.jpg, A large specimen of sceptred smoky quartz from Nevada. File:Quartz-232961.jpg, A two-sided cluster of glassy and lustrous, doubly terminated smoky quartz crystals from recent finds in Namaqualand, South Africa. The longest crystal is 8.1 cm. File:Quartz-265762.jpg, This is an example of the so-called ''alligator quartz''. File:Quartz-260103.jpg, A 'large' specimen from a new find in Minas Gerais. File:Smokey-elestial-quartz.jpg, alt=Elestial Smoky Quartz from Ethereal Paradox, Elestial Smoky Quartz

References

* Holden, Edward (1925).
The Cause of Color in Smoky Quartz and Amethyst
in ''American Mineralologist'', vol. 9, pp. 203–252

External links

Quartz gemstones {{mineral-stub

Varieties

Uses

Gallery

See also

References

External links