Amethyst
The name for the mineral amethyst comes from the Greek word amethustos which means not drunken. In the first century a famous Greek god wrote that amethyst was named for its color being nearly the same as the color of wine. Early Greeks believed that drinking wine from an amethyst cup would prevent intoxication, or getting drunk. Amethyst is a purple gemstone. Iron and manganese compounds or impurities cause this purple coloration. The purple color of amethyst is due to small amounts (approximately 40 parts per million) of iron (Fe4+) impurities at certain areas in the crystal structure of quartz. The difference between amethyst and citrine is only the Oxidation State of the iron impurities in the quartz. When heated, the iron impurities are reduced and the amethyst's purple color fades and becomes yellow to reddish-orange (citrine), green, or colorless depending on the area and the original oxidation state of the iron impurities currently and the amount and time of the heating. The amethystine color usually can come back by irradiation, which re-oxidizes the iron impurities. The process can be done in a laboratory, but not often and when done is very difficult to tell that the mineral is synthetic. The color can also come back by
If the Amethyst is of poor quality it is used for beads. And in Canada Amethyst is more of a violet shade. The heating process can occur naturally or synthetically. Crystalline quartz is a dichroic crystal and if the quartz is heated it will change the color of the mineral into yellow, creating another gemstone or mineral called citrine. This is mostly a reversible process, but constant heating can change the distribution of the iron impurities at different sites within the quartz making it impossible to convert it back to amethyst by post irradiation. Amethyst is the birthstone for the month of February. It is also said to give strength and mental stability, and to provide balance between one's physical, emotional, and intellectual stages. A coat of red hematite, or iron, causes this reddish hue that is inside of the mineral itself. Quartz occurs in an unlimited variety of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. Types of quartz are separated into two groups based on the size of the individual grains or crystals: Macrocrystalline quartz is where individual crystals are seen only with the naked eye, and cryptocrystalline quartz is where the individual crystals are too small to be easily seen even under the light microscope. Amethyst has been found in siliceous volcanic, occurring as macroscopic crystals, or crystals that are visible to the naked eye and covered with a large number of small crystal vugs, or small cavities in a rock or vein, often with a mineral lining of different composition from that of the surrounding rock often forming geodes.
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