Metamorphosis Quartz?

Yes, I know its a hooey name, what I want to know is what it is...really.
It looks like snow quartz or milky quartz but does anyone know why it is being called Metamorphosis Quartz?

here is a website that carries it, just want your opinions. thanks!!

[www.exquisitecrystals.com]

So they can charge $15.00 for a piece of quartz that is worth $.50 to $1.00

yup yup so what do you think it is? am i on target when I say snow or milky quartz you think?

Yes, either milky quartz with some clear patches or a very poor grade of rock crystal (with lots of milky patches)

Metamorphosis means "Change", and they are probably hoping people will part with some of their change to buy these very ordinary bits of quartz of the sort that anyone could find on thousands of mine dumps, or even simply as stream pebbles in the right terrain. (And some obviously are buying it, otherwise they wouldn't waste their time polishing and advertising it.)

It's just another marketing hype, a way of selling some rather turbid common quartz. Polish it up a bit, call it an exotic-sounding name people will not recognise, and they'll think it's something rare and pay more for it. It probably occurs as massive vein material, without good crystal terminations, and wouldn't sell if pitched alongside limpid rock crystal, amethyst etc. if it was correctly described simply as lumps of polished quartz. And if they can create a market for it, the supply of cheap source material is almost limitless.

Pete N.

kristi;
it's garbage.
steve

Yup

Pretty polished stuff, would be nice to have one as decoration. But the "metamorphosis" here is just the usual metaphysical fluff.

Since quartz is the second most common mineral in earth's crust, it would probably noty make the same marketing smash to say that it has been geologically metamorhosed!

Steer clear of anything that has a quote from "Love is in the Earth" by Melody and, if you live in the UK, watch Richard Dawkins on Channel 4 on Monday night with a programme called The Enemies of Reason.

I grabbed a piece today and you know what it looks like? Girasol!! or what some call titanium in quartz. it has almost a non-fiery opalized look to it. Doesn't get me any closer to what it really is, but I had to share!

i think it's what's technically known a a pebble!

Hi Kristi,

please forgive me, but what the h..k is "girasol"?
Is there any consistent definition, like something that more than one person agrees on?
I googled one definition saying it's some kind of hyalite, another one says it's an orange opal, another one says "opalized quartz" (however this is supposed to work - this is a worse term than "petrified rock", and so on.

What you got looks like a fragment of hyalite (in the wider sense of the term, cololess opal) to me, could also be very pale rose quartz or translucent vein quartz.
To distinguish opal from quartz without relying on the nasty scratch tests or optical methods, you could simply measure its specific weight, but you need to work very exactly.
Opal: 1.9-2.5 (usually below 2.3), Quartz: 2.65

Cheers
Amir

Girasol is clear Quartz with a white opalescence effect on the surface, usually comes as polished pebbles from Madagascar.

The (latest) pic looks like gemmy Madagascan rose quartz to me. Titanium used to be attributed to the rose coloring in rose quartz, but dumortierite is now believed to be the cause of the color.
Maybe that's how they worked titanium into what they called this stuff.

Rub 3x counterclockwise and you turn into a giant roach?

Not to be confused with Metaquartzite , a metamorphic rock of many colors . Sold as raspberry , strawberry Quartz . The metamorphic part almost never added to the quote . I`m not sure most people even know this . This metmorphosis quartz is not metaquartzite , I dont know what it is though .

Ted, if you carefully reread the first 5 posts on this thread, you'll know exactly what "metamorphosis quartz" is!

Hm, strange, girasol.......I know girasole is the Italian name for sunflower (tournesol in French; gira or tourne for turning, sole or sol for sun), didn't know that some nutcases somehow somewhere decided to name ordinary pieces of quartz or opal like that.
The real metamorphosis here is that the person who believes all this rubbish and buys it will enter a higher state of ignorance and the one selling this garbage a higher state of conmanship.
Believe me, people will buy anything, a famous Italian "Fluxus" artist in the sixties (Pietro Manzoni) once made a piece of art about this phenomenon.....he putt his own shit (literaly!!!) in a tincan, labled it saying "merda d'artista" and believe me or not, they went to famous collections and leading art galleries and musea all over the world and if you want to by a cann with his crap nowadays you'll have to pay a lot of money, go figure......
Here's a pic of the artist's shit, Sothebys sold one last year for 124.000 Euros!!

Cheers

Harjo (who is about to make a metamorphic cup of coffee to counter the effects imposed by the highly metamorphic wine from last night......)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2008 07:33AM by Harjo Neutkens.

Thought you might enjoy this. Awen
[gsa.confex.com]

TEXTURAL FEATURES OF METAMORPHIC QUARTZ AS REVEALED BY SCANNED CATHODOLUMINESCENCE (SEM-CL): POTENTIAL USE IN PROVENANCE STUDIES
TENNISON, Evelyn1, SCHIEBER, Juergen1, and KRINSLEY, David2, (1) Geology, The Univ of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX 76019, geodork54@yahoo.com, (2) Geological Sciences, 1272 Univ of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-1272
Monotonous under the petrographic microscope, quartz grains show a range of textural features when examined by SEM-CL. Preliminary studies have shown that quartz grains from different sources (volcanic, plutonic, metamorphic) differ in appearance when examined by SEM-CL. In this study, metamorphic source rocks, soils, and stream sediments from the Llano Uplift in Texas were surveyed for SEM-CL features, with the objective to ultimately use the results for provenance studies. The textures observed in the metamorphic rocks under study (schist and gneiss) include: (1) low to moderate intensity mottled/patchy CL with smooth gradients between areas of different intensity; (2) semi parallel bands/lineations of differing CL intensity; (3) cataclasic texture reflecting fragmentation and subsequent cementation/healing, and (4) low intensity (dark) lineations. Texture (1) is interpreted as a result of metamorphic annealing that obliterated pre-existing CL features; texture (2) is considered a reflection of slip/gliding during deformation at high pressures and temperatures; and deformation at somewhat lower P/T conditions deformation may have produced the fracturing seen in texture (3). Field relationships suggest that the dark lineations of texture (4) originated as fractures related to stress caused by granitic intrusions, and were healed with quartz deposited by hydrothermal fluids. These features survive without alteration into soils and stream sediments, but their recognition is grain-size dependent. Sand size or larger quartz grains typically allow identification of the metamorphic source, whereas at coarse silt size approximately 50% of the quartz grains can still be identified as metamorphic. At finer grain sizes the proportion of identifiable grains drops sharply. Because quartz is chemically and mechanically very resistant, as well as ubiquitous in most sediments, understanding SEM-CL features from different source rock types has the potential to greatly aid provenance determination.

GSA Annual Meeting, November 5-8, 2001
General Information for this Meeting
Session No. 30--Booth# 16
Stratigraphy (Posters) I: Silisiclastic
Hynes Convention Center: Hall D
1:30 PM-5:30 PM, Monday, November 5, 2001

P. T. Barnum said it best: "There's a sucker born every minute." However, this is now out of date. Assuming that the proportion of suckers has stayed the same as global population has increased, we can now conclude that there is a sucker born every 15 seconds or so.