Many minerals form beautiful crystals, but the most prized of all are gemstones. Uncut gems often look fairly ordinary–like rocks. It's only when they are cut and polished that they obtain the ...

Most people know some very basic information about minerals, crystals, and gemstones, but likely wouldn ... often hiding among normal rocks, they are looked at very differently.

Crystals are characterized by their ... for use in things like jewelry and research. Some gemstones are also minerals, such as that classic rock diamond, but there are some gemstones that aren ...

Evidence for the use of rock crystal - a rare type of perfectly transparent quartz which forms in large hexagonal gems - has occasionally been found at prehistoric sites in the British Isles, but ...

We set out to test exactly what we could resolve in terms of fluid access to the matrix of these rocks and we were amazed at the extremely limited volume involved. But what was most amazing to us was ...

There would be no bright and colorful fireworks without rocks and minerals ... group also includes the strontium-sulfate mineral celestite. Baryte crystal on matrix from Cerro Huarihuyn, Peru.

While these crystals are probably similar in shape to the pointy hexagonal prisms found in geodes and gem shops on Earth ... of one centimeter. Unlike mineral particles found in clouds on Earth ...