Quartz is one of the most common minerals on Earth. It can be almost any color due to impurities in its composition. Minerals like amethyst with its marvelous purple tint, spellbinding yellow-golden toned citrine, smoky quartz, rose quartz, colorless and transparent rock crystal, black morion and aventurine (shiny crimson-reddish quartz) are all considered quartz.
The Mining Museum’s collection exhibits samples of rock crystal with rutile incrustations. Such kind of quartz are sometimes called “furry”, “rutile quartz”, or “Venus’ hair”. Moreover, the collection showcases a japanese crystal twinning, twisted smoky quartz crystal and a druze of rock crystal - all gifts from the Emperor Alexander II.
Hematite-coloured quartz with gypsum Mangyshlak, Kazakhstan
Smoky quartz A twisted crystal The Polar Urals
Rock crystal with rutile inclusions Minas Gerais, Brazil
Quartz The Japanese twin-crystals Gudzhivas deposit, the Pamirs, Tajikistan
Rock crystal Druse of crystals Pelengichey, the Polar Urals
Quartz Druse of rock crystal Japan A present of Emperor Alexander II, 1866
