Most beautiful gemstones

[Kazimiera]

28 Beyond Beautiful Minerals And Stones

Source: http://www.earthporm.com/beautiful-minerals-and-stones/

Get ready to over indulge on the world’s most beautiful minerals and stones! When you think of gorgeous natural treasures glistening diamonds and deeply colored gemstones often come to mind. Less common minerals are largely forgotten, but as this list proves they most certainly shouldn’t be.

1. Luz Opal With Galaxy Inside




2. Sunset Fire Opal




3. Lightning Ridge Black Opal




4. Opal Fossil




5. The ‘Empress Of Uruguay’




6. Ocean Inside Of An Opal




7. Fluorite




8. Bismuth




9. Titanium Quartz




10. Rose Quartz Geode




11. Chrysocolla In Malachite




12. Azurite




13. Scolecite




14. Watermelon Tourmaline




15. Burmese Tourmaline




16. Bismuth




17. Realgar On Calcite




18. Cobalto Calcite




19. Uvarovite




20. Combination Of Fluorite, Quartz and Pyrite

[Kazimiera]

21. Crocoite




22. Rhodochrosite




23. Rhodochrosite




24. Botswana Agate




25. Alexandrite




26. Opalised Ammonite




27. Tourmaline On Quartz With Lepidolite And Cleavelandite Accents




28. Carnelian

[zarzian]

Wow, such colors

[Svipdag]

The opals, 1.-6. are gorgeous. Unfortunately, opal is prone to shattering easily, especially if exposed to freezing temperatures because
it contains water. This has given it a reputation as a bad-luck stone.

7. In case you wonder why such a beautiful mineral as fluorite is not a gemstone, it is very soft, only 4 on Mohs' Scale, and easy to scratch and it has, as shown, 6 pefect cleavages, so that breaks easily into cubes.

8. Specimens of crystallised bismuth show such magnificent urban landscapes that I think that architects should put them on their desks for inspiration.

11. Well ! This is the first time I have ever seen a geode full of phallic symbols !

14. This is the best example of watermelon tourmaline I have seen, though there is one nearly as good in the museum at Rutgers.

17. I have never seen realgar in good crystals before .Usually it occurs as a mass of tiny grains mixed with orpiment. Both are very toxic
being sulfides of arsenic. The mother of a late friend of mine stole "pretty stones" from his mineral collection to put in her goldfish tank. Alas for the goldfish, one of them happened to be orpiment and realgar.

19 Uvarovite is a chromium garnet found mainly in Russia. It is very rare, and perfect crystals like this are the exception, not the rule.

25. Ah, Alexandrite, named after the Tsar. This picture was taken under incandescent light. Had it been taken in daylight, the stone would have been blue-green. I had a poor example of it in a ring I purchased on St. Thomas, but it was stolen from me. One of the jewellery stores on St. Thomas used to have the world's largest alexandrite. It was about the size of a mango.

Thank you for showing us all of these fine minerals and gemstones. They are magnificent specimens.