Black Quartz Crystals

Hopefully someone can educate me. I purchased a collections of rocks and minerals from an antique dealer. All of the specimens were numbered and cross referenced in a card file. One of the specimens is a small--approx. 3 in.- plate of black quartz crystals. one of the crystals is broken and reveals glassy black quartz. The crystals are nicely terminated and are solid black. The specimen is from Durango, Mexico. These are not smokey or transparent. Does anyone know if black quartz is common, what elements beside the SiO would make it black, and is there another name for it besides black quartz? I appreciate your help in this.
Thanks,
Linda

Hello,

Naturally occuring black quartz is called morion. The color is a very complicated thing including 1) disorders of the electronic structure due to exchange of Si (4+) by Al (3+); 2) activation of so called color centers (e.g. electrons on places between the lattice of the crystal by radiaton. Naturally the process is much more complicated. In nature, uranium minerals or even radiation from the wallrocj (zircon or monazite) can cause the coloration.

But I doubt the natural origin of that piece. They often use rock crystals (colorless),e.g. from Arkansas and put them into a nuclear power source. These quartz-xls are also nearly black. A photo will help consider if it's natural or not. Almost artificially colored Arkansas specimen I#ve seen have no other minerals then quartz and no rock.

Regards,

Sebastian Möller

Sebastian, thank you for your reply. The specimen I have is from a collection that I purchased that is over 40 years old. The specimen is a piece of a vug--there is matrix on which the crystals grew and there are about forty or fifty quartz crystals of various sizes growing from the matrix. they range in sizes from less than 1 cm to about 3cm. I will try to take a photo of this but the label cites Durango, Old Mexico and it was wrapped in newspaper dated 1979.

hello Linda

Sounds interesting you dates about mexican black quartz in Durango. In the border Chihuahua-Durango states there are one locality with deep smoky quartz some times with blue amazonite... but if you send a picture may be i will help to you .

Regards Jorge Diaz . Mèxico.

About 20 years ago I got a small piece of jet black opaque quartz on hematite from the Florence mine,West Cumberland Iron ore field, England. I obtained it a few miles from the mine from a dealer and the mine was working then.
I have never seen black quartz before or since.
Come to think of it I haven't seen that specimen for many years!

Thank you all who have answered this query. I am hopefully attaching a couple of photos of the black quartz specimen. I hope these are clear enough as I am truly a novice at taking pictures. Thank you also for your patience.

Linda

Here is one more.

The crystals don't appear opaque in the photos but they are. The small crystals have some transluscence but the larger crystals show none.

Looks like really really SMOKEY quartz, so Morion , might translate as many many more ions than other smokey quartzes...lol

Thanks for the laugh. I am thinking that you are right!
By the way, thanks for posting Irene's poem. It was lovely.

Hello,

As far as I can tell: This is a naturally colored smoky quartz. Without photos I first thought of one of the really black ones artificially colored. But this is nearly without doubt natural.

Regards,

Sebastian Möller

Hi Mark, the Florence mine is still worked today, but now it is worked only for mineral specimens. Spencer.

Hi Linda.
I think that you did a good job of the photo for a novice.
where i live in S.E. Queensland, we have quite a bit of granite around & i often find smokey Qz/morian xlts, sometimes in combination with feldspar crystals. Send me an email & i'll see if i can find a specimen for you.
regards Philip

Hi Philip,
I sent you a message on the message list. It has my home e-mail. Thanks for the compliment. I am still learning the photography thing. It was trial an error. for every 10 photos I got one that looked okay. I think I need to practice more.
Linda

No worries Linda, many mineral photogs may take 50 or whatever high number of photos to get the one that they like , of for that matter, the one that you get to see.So, you 10 photos is a really good effort,and one you should be proud of.I have seen so many fuzzy, out of focus pics on this website..so by comparison, you should feel good about your efforts.

Thanks Ray. I am now looking at cameras. My poor husband justs laugh at my now "obsessive" desire to take pictures of my mineral collection. I am becoming quite dangerous with all of this. LOL

Linda

Linda, I can't help you on the confirmation of the locality for the specimen, because I've never seen smoky quartz from Mexico in my 40+ years of collecting. However, I can assist you a little on searchin for a camera. I assume you are looking at the $150 - $400 compact digital cameras that all the major manufacturers are putting out. Most if not all of them will have a macro function which will allow you to get close to your minerals, but the better ones will have adjustable settings, like Aperature priority, which will allow you to pick an f-stop small enough to get the depth of field you need. A tripod also helps, and the self-timer function on the camera. The ~$150 Canon A-570 I got for my girlfriend will do all of those things. I'm a Nikon man myself, but Canon has great point 'n shoot cameras at a good price. Hope this helps. If you have more questions, PM me and I'll try to help.
Steve

Thank you Stephen, I will look into the the Canon A-570. I have always been somewhat intimidated by cameras with settings and such. My husband has a Canon AE-1 that made me nuts. I bought an Olympus camera that by and large was a point and shoot and did fine. Of course that was the days of film and developing. I love having a digital as I can delete what I goof up and edit photos that are worthwhile.
After looking at the Canon, I may send you some questions on PM.

Again,
Thank you,
Linda