Gem Profile- Quartz with Inclusions Part 2

Sometimes forming in radial fans and often singular, elongated tourmaline crystals have 6 sides (like a pencil) and can be included in several different rocks. Also known as Green Hair Quartz, Fleches d'Amour (Love Arrows) or Cupid's Darts, water clear quartz with included tourmaline crystals is often faceted or cut into a variety of shapes and makes awesome jewelry designs. Please be aware that the stone prehnite can be confused with tourmalated quartz.


PIctured: A collection of faceted tourmalated quartz, one set into a wire pendant by Dale Cougar Armstrong and Kim Burns wire wrapped this approximately 14ct, 13mmx19mm Tourmalated Quartz stone with Argentium Silver wire, using Dale's Prong Ring DVD!

A very cool type of included quartz is called "Medusa" quartz, named for resembling the shape of the medusas rondeau jellyfish. Trapped blobs of gilalite (named for Gila County, Arizona) seem to float in the water clear quartz as seen in these Google images.

Have you seen clear quartz that looks as though a snowflake, branch or leaf has been suspended inside? This type of included quartz is known as dendritic quartz. No, the images within the quartz aren't fossils, rather they are dendrite (meaning tree) crystal forms of either chlorite or iron oxides.


Pictured: Examples of faceted quartz with dendrite inclusions, known as dendritic quartz. Private collection, Dale Armstrong and dendrite quartz pendant by Gina Smith

The latest label for this exotically included quartz, lodolite/lodalite, translates into "stone from mud" because the quartz crystals often formed in clay/mud pockets. While the silica/quartz was forming, an additional mineral became involved. These heavier materials of cookeite/chlorite settled to the bottom of the quartz formation in colors including white, beige, yellow, orange, green, light blue, light brown and light pink. Sometimes the chlorite minerals settled down and formed their known crystal shapes of rosettes, balls and radiating spheres, and sometimes the deposit became frozen during formation, appearing as clouds. (I do need to mention that occasionally the green can appear mossy, but included macrocrystalline quartz should not be confused with cryptocrystalline moss agate, that will be covered in my future cryptocrystalline articles in this quartz series.) Other materials within lodolite quartz include iron and calcite. Note though, when this quartz contains mainly bright orange iron oxides mixed with cream and white calcite, it can be labeled "Leolite." Whatever you decide to call it, in my opinion, chlorite included quartz is fabulous!



More examples of chlorite and calcite included "Garden" quartz. Private collection, Dale Armstrong and Natural quartz crystals from Brazil, with chlorite inclusions and clouds.

Okay, now what do you suppose happens when a quartz crystal stopped growing and another mineral crystallized on top of it, coating the original crystal with thousands of tiny colored crystals; and then additional silica entered the same vug/cavity and another quartz crystal form grew over the entire combination? Appearing as one or more ghost-like crystals within a single specimen, these are called phantoms. Otherworldly and rare, phantom crystals can be composed of a wide variety of materials including: sand, clay, chlorite, actinolite and mica or iron materials such as goethite and hematite. One other way that a phantom may have occurred could be due to temperature changes during the crystal's formation, where severe temperature changes interfered with the original growth for a bit (like a few thousand or millions of years) and when it restabilized the crystal continued to grow in its normal manner. Phantoms are most often found in rock crystal, occasionally in amethyst or smoky quartz. Although some lapidaries will cut and polish huge phantom specimens into items like crystal balls, eggs and spheres, most examples are smaller and will make fine pendants using a wire technique such as the Caged Crystal, which will not harm the specimen in any way.



Pictured: A few of the water quartz crystals in my personal collection, showing a variety of phantoms and an unusual specimen that comes from Tibet. Notice not only the exotic crystal scepter growth, but also the clay inclusions within the bottom crystal.