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Fakes & FraudsPink Amethyst

12th Mar 2018 00:47 UTCGabriella Paparella

I noticed these coming out of Patagonia over the last couple of years at the Tucson Gem Show. The miners claim it's the only place on the planet where this hails from. They look like a lightly colored amethyst with a bit of hematite staining, some specimens have quite a bit of color zoning going on; going from purple to red to pink. Wondering if anyone knows if these have been studied with an assay completed; are they indeed true amethyst with the iron impurities?

While hunting around online for some to share a link I noticed a lot of fakes for these. This one seems to look like the real deal: http://blog.crystalrockstar.com/pink-amethyst/

12th Mar 2018 00:57 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

Very pretty quartz. Question is is it natural or treated?

12th Mar 2018 01:31 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

These nodules grew in a gypsum bed in San Luis province, if I remember rightly. Some still have associated gypsum, so they can't have been heat-treated or else the gypsum would have beem destroyed. The pink coloring is probably a tiny amount of micro hematite, which is not unusual in low-temperature evaporite rocks. Whether you want to call these amethyst or not is a matter of taste - Personally I would just call them quartz. But some of them can get rather pretty - a nice change from the usual quartz geodes from volcanic rocks.

12th Mar 2018 01:33 UTCRuss Rizzo Expert

Looks like Alfredo beat me by 1 minute in replying. :)

My vote is for natural. The pink color is probably from Hematite inclusions. I've seen several Geodes from France that were the same hue. If it were dyed, the outside of the Geode would be pink too.

12th Mar 2018 01:52 UTCPaul Brandes 🌟 Manager

This looks much like the material we recover from the Texas Hill Country in the pegmatites. Those quartz points are also included with hematite to give them a pink to light red colour. They are completely natural.

"Pink Amethyst", however, is not natural, but then again what does one expect from the healy-feelies.....

12th Mar 2018 03:08 UTCDoug Daniels

From that great font of knowledge, Wikipedia:

The color amethyst is a moderate, transparent purple. It is also known as a deep shade of lavender. Its name is from the stone amethyst. This stone is a form of quartz but it is not always purple.it was a very prized stone before more abundance of it was found.

So, pink amethyst is a pink-purple? How do we know it's not a purple-pink? I'm gettin' confused.........

12th Mar 2018 03:23 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

For a detailed description of amethyst, I recommend Dr Amir Akhavan's: http://www.quartzpage.de/amethyst.html

12th Mar 2018 18:43 UTCGregg Little 🌟

Alfred;

You referred to this as low temperature evaporite rocks. Is this hydrothermal deposition in the gypsum bed or is the whole unit not sedimentary in origin? Any references for the San Luis Province geology?

13th Mar 2018 01:03 UTCGabriella Paparella

Thank you so much for the input.

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