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General"Synthetic Quartz: a Designer Inclusion Specimen"

8th Feb 2017 05:34 UTCElise Skalwold

For those interested in exploring the properties of quartz and inclusions in minerals, here is a bit of a twist: the latest issue of Gems & Gemology is out and I am super excited about my special report documenting a project that I've been working on all year: "Synthetic Quartz: a Designer Inclusion Specimen". Online version here (but don't miss getting the hardcopy): https://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/winter-2016-microworld-synthetic-quartz-designer-inclusion-specimen

This follows closely on two earlier reports:

"Evolution of the Inclusion Illusion". Skalwold, E.A. InColor (2016) Summer Issue, 32, pages 22-23 (PDF available here: http://www.nordskip.com/2016_Inclusion_Evolution_Illusion_InColor.pdf)

and

"Garnet Inclusion Illusion". Skalwold, E.A. Gems & Gemology (2016), Vol. 52, No. 2, pages 201-202, now Open Access here: https://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/summer-2016-microworld-garnet-inclusion-illusion

Best wishes,

Elise

8th Feb 2017 13:26 UTCJamison K. Brizendine 🌟 Expert

I will have to get a hardcopy for my collection. It sounds like a very interesting paper and I'm glad that the garnets weren't destroyed when quartz was growing.

Now I own a specimen that was originally from Maryland that had Wollastonite as an accessory mineral (though I didn't know it at the time). When the rough crystal re-grew I was shocked when I used the ultraviolet light and found some relict Wollastonite, now an "inclusion" in the crystal.

22nd Feb 2017 21:13 UTCElise Skalwold

That is really extraordinary Jamison! I would love to see more images of it. My specimen above is just one of 4 different ones and the "paper" is really a short lab note (the column has a word limit for entries). I have a longer version which will hopefully come out later in the year. No garnets were destroyed in the process; the problem was to get them to be "accepted" by the growing crystal.

Best wishes,

Elise

Jamison K. Brizendine Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I will have to get a hardcopy for my collection.

> It sounds like a very interesting paper and I'm

> glad that the garnets weren't destroyed when

> quartz was growing.

>

> Now I own a specimen that was originally from

> Maryland that had Wollastonite as an accessory

> mineral (though I didn't know it at the time).

> When the rough crystal re-grew I was shocked when

> I used the ultraviolet light and found some relict

> Wollastonite, now an "inclusion" in the crystal.

>

>

22nd Feb 2017 21:27 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

" the problem was to get them to be "accepted" by the growing crystal."

I've been wondering about this, as quartz grows around older minerals, it seems to sometimes easily incorporate them, sometimes not. I've been looking recently at dozens of quartzes from Yukon that grew up against older lazulites. One sees the dark blue lazulite crystals frequently imprinting the surface of the quartz, but the quartz never seems to grow completely around it to produce a decent inclusion. But wardite crystals from the same locality do grow around lazulite crystals, producing inclusions.

23rd Feb 2017 00:31 UTCMatt Neuzil Expert

Its surely more complicated, but time in a melt wouldnt have anything to do with it or what minerals crystalize first in the melt and which ones are last to crystalize?

23rd Feb 2017 02:05 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

These are hydrothermally grown no melt involved.

23rd Feb 2017 06:19 UTCGregg Little 🌟

The processes that occur at the atomic level of a crystallizing surface at higher temperatures and pressures appear still not fully understood. Even the hydrothermal fluid chemistry is far from being completely understood although fluid inclusion studies have taken us a long way towards that goal. Time, as Matt pointed out, is another vague but critical factor often only described as bracketing the period of mineral or rock formation.

Even in the article of garnet inclusions in quartz, the term inclusion I think is debatable. The term encapsulation might be more appropriate. The quartz did not freely grow around the garnet as it might in nature but during the quartz synthesis holes were bored into the quartz where garnets were inserted to be sealed in during the second stage of quartz growth. Even with that intervention, not all garnet ended up encapsulated in the quartz. Along with the garnet some of the growing medium was also encapsulated.

Beyond growing inclusions in minerals, like evaporites, at room temperatures and pressures, the science of creating inclusions would still seem in its infancy.

23rd Feb 2017 13:33 UTCDavid K. Joyce Expert

Alfredo,

Lazulite crystals certainly occur as inclusions in clear quartz crystals from the Champion Mine, California. I expect that local temp/pressure/time/chemistry conditions would dictate what minerals are included quartz at one locality but not at another?

David K Joyce

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