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Where Can You Find Diamonds?
If you have a strong interest in gemstones, you would probably love to have an opportunity to mine for diamonds yourself. Here’s where you can go – it is the only producing diamond mine in the United States and the only diamond mine in the world where you can be the miner. Diamonds Found at the Mine: This small…
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About Using Tiffany Stone in Jewelry
Although Tiffany Stone can be very attractive, there is an important thing to consider when using in jewelry – it has a Mohs hardness of only 5 to 5 1/2. That makes it very easy to scratch. If Tiffany Stone is used in a ring, it will quickly show signs of wear and lose its nice polish…
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Where Can You Buy Tiffany Stone?
Jewelry made with Tiffany stone is unlikely to be found in a mall jewelry store. Instead, it is most likely to be sold at a gem and mineral show, at a rock shop, or by a lapidarist at a craft show. You might also find it at an online craft marketplace such as Etsy. Some of…
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Other Names for Tiffany Stone
The most appropriate name for Tiffany stone is “opal fluorite” or “opalized fluorite.” These names reasonably represent the composition of most specimens. Another popular name is “bertrandite.” That name is incorrect because bertrandite is a mineral, which only comprises a few percent of the rock known as Tiffany stone. It is also called “ice cream stone”…
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Where Is Tiffany Stone Found?
Tiffany stone is a rare material. It is mined at one location worldwide – the Brush Wellman beryllium mine, at Spor Mountain, western Utah. It occurs there as nodules that are part of the ore produced at the mine. The nodules typically contain between one and two percent beryllium by weight. The United States Geological Survey reports…
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What Is Tiffany Stone?
“Tiffany stone” is a trade name used for a purple, blue and white gem material that can be cut and polished into beautiful beads, cabochons and tumbled stones. Geologically, Tiffany stone is a rock composed primarily of fluorite with smaller amounts of opal, calcite, dolomite, quartz, chalcedony, bertrandite and other materials. Other names used for Tiffany stone are “opalized fluorite,” “ice cream stone,” and “bertrandite.” A…
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Not Really “Wood”
A material found in the Catahoula Formation of Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas is widely known as “petrified palm wood.” However, palm plants really don’t produce “wood.” Instead their trunk is made up of parenchyma, a fibrous support material that is surrounded by hollow tubes of the vascular structure known as xylem and phloem. These tubes transported…
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Collecting Petrified Wood Legally
Collecting petrified wood can only be done on private property where permission has been obtained from the landowner, or on limited tracts of government lands where small quantities are allowed to be collected for personal use. Before you collect, get permission and collecting rules from the owner of private property or from the government agency…
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Lapidary Uses of Petrified Wood
Petrified wood is often used in lapidary work. It is cut into shapes for making jewelry, sawn into blocks to make bookends, sawn into thick slabs to make table tops, and sawn into thin slabs for clock faces. It can be cut into cabochons or used to make tumbled stones and many other crafts. Small pieces of petrified wood…
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Types of Silicified Wood
Some of the best specimens of petrified wood have been preserved by silicification. Two forms of silicification are common. The most abundant is wood that has been replaced and infilled by chalcedony (sometimes called “agatized wood”). The other form is wood that has been infilled and replaced by opal (usually called “opalized wood”). Both of these varieties…