Brazil Gemstones & Minerals

The following is a list of Brazil gems and minerals listed in our database. Click the pictures to get full data, click the X to remove the gem from the list.

Beryllonite

Beryllonite: Beryllonite is a clear gem/mineral that gets its name from its high content of beryllium. There are very few gem quality pieces that have been produced. Beryllonite can be found in Pakistan, Brazil, Finland, and Maine. It has a color streak of white, and a vitreous luster. (read full)

Brazilianite

Brazilianite: Brazilianite is a soft and brittle mineral that in general does work very well as a gemstone. It's soft at 5.5 Mohs, and so it will quickly either shear apart, or crumble at the edges. As one might guess Brazilianite was first discovered in Brazil. It tends to be a yellow or light yellowish green mineral. This mineral has also been found in New Hampshire, United States. The mineral is so rare it (read full)

Amblygonite

Amblygonite: Amblygonite is a not so popular gem whose greek name means crooked. It comes in green, clear, yellow, and even purple. Older cut specimens may have slightly rounded facet edges due to the gems lack hardness (6 of 10). Amblygonite can be found in Brazil, France, the United States, Burma, and even Sweden. It may be confused easily with Brazilianite. (read full)

Andalusite

Andalusite: The gem Andalusite is a gemstone composed of Lead Sulphate giving it a yellowish hew with a light tint of a rusty red color. Its named after the city Andalusia in Spain where it was first found. Colors generally vary from yellow, to yellow green, to green, to brownish red (more iron in the read hued versions), to purple, and even black. This gem is pleochroic meaning it changes color depending on (read full)

Agate Chalcedony

Agate Chalcedony: Agate Chalcedony differs from other Chalcedony in that it often has distinct banding. In fact some slices of Agate may appear to have banding similar to that of tree rings. Due to its porous nature it is often colored (by humans) black, red, green, or blue to further increase its visual appeal. Agate Chalcedony is found in Brazil, China, Germany ,Hungary, Mexico, Uruguay, the United States, and (read full)

Chrysoberyl

Chrysoberyl: Chrysoberyl appears as prismatic, tabular crystals often v-shaped twins forming pseudo-hexagonal crystals. Single crystals are rare. May be colorless, green, yellow, gray or brown. A variety, alexandrite, is red in tungsten light but dark green in daylight. This pronounced color change is highly-prized, and the exact tone of colors is important, the ideal being brilliant green turning to fie (read full)

Axinite

Axinite: Axinite is a honey brownish to dark brown gem that is named after the axe head like crystal structures that are usually found. It is usually found in and around granite deposits, and is often mistaken (and sometimes sold by mistake) as smokey quartz. The gem is piezoelectric and because of this has been used to remove hair and lint from unwanted objects. A negative side effect of this is that it (read full)

Morganite

Morganite: Morganite is a pale red-purple, rose, salmon to purplish red, slightly pink, cesium-bearing variety of Beryl. The Beryl group of silicates includes the important gem varieties emerald, blue aquamarine, pink morganite, and red and yellow beryl. The color of morganite is usually a soft pink without any overtones. It has glassy luster, like other beryls, but its pleochroism is not noticeable. The p (read full)

Heliodor Beryl

Heliodor Beryl: Heliodor is a gem variety of Beryl with golden-yellow or light yellow-green color. In many cases heliodor is also used to include gems known as Golden beryl/ Golden emerald, though not to be confused with gold beryl. It is sometimes hard to establish a dividing line between heliodor and golden beryl. Its main characteristic is its color, which is the yellow-green of olive oil. Its pigment is uran (read full)

Chalcedony

Chalcedony: Chalcedony is a compact form of silica, composed of microscopic quartz crystals. It is softer than quartz and denser than opal. Its appearance may range from transparent to translucent to opaque. The main types are chalcedony, which is uniformly colored, and agate, which has curved bands or zones of varying color. Varieties include the red to reddish brown, translucent carnelian, the red, opaqu (read full)

Aquamarine

Aquamarine: Aquamarine is a form Beryl that is similar in color to sea water. So it varies from green to blue just like the oceans. Most if not all Aquamarine has been heat treated to improve or lighten the color. Currently the most popular and therefore valuable colors of Aquamarine Beryl are the light "sky" blue versions. If Aquamarine receives large amounts of heat treatment it will bleach or be (read full)

Plasma Chalcedony

Plasma Chalcedony: Plasma is a massive, semitransparent, leek to dark green variety of Chalcedony (a microcrystalline variety of the Quartz group), microgranular or microfibrous, consisting of speckles of red or brownish-red jasper, resembling drops of blood. It is translucent to opaque, may be dark green to bright-green, apple-green, or nearly emerald-green, containing microfibrous of actinolite, frequently fleck (read full)

Lazulite

Lazulite: Lazulite is a compact, pleochroitic mineral which forms a series to scorzalite. It is dichroic, with a monoclinic crystal system. It appears as pointed, pseudo-dipyramidal, bright blue crystals in microgranular masses. It is hard, medium heavy, fragile with indistinct prismatic cleavage. It is translucent, with vitreous luster. It is infusible, discolors and breaks into small fragments when heat (read full)

Rose Quartz

Rose Quartz: Rose quartz is a usually cloudy, translucent, delicate pale pink, deep pink, rose-red to quasi-white and often veined variety of Quartz. Also known as pink quartz , rose quartz may occur more often as anhedral masses or rarely as crystals which often reach quite large sizes. Rose quartz almost always occurs in pegmatites in massive crystalline bodies which do not show crystal faces. These larg (read full)

Spodumene

Spodumene: Spodumene is a lithium aluminum silicate that crystallizes in the monoclinic system. It is one of several rock-forming minerals in the Pyroxene group, which are physically-related as their chemical content is quite similar and forms a chain. Fellow pyroxenes are jadeite, enstatite, diopside, hypersthene, augite, acmite, hedenbergite, pigeonite, and aegirineaugite. It appears as prismatic crystals (read full)

Amethyst

Amethyst: Amethyst is the most coveted stone in the quartz group, and it is sometimes confused with beryl. It is usually found layered with milky quartz, and its color varies from purple to violet. It is sometimes sold as Ametrine, but this is actually a combined variation of 2 gems; Amethyst and Citrine. Amethyst like Agate Chalcedony can be found in geodes. There are many types of synthetic Amethyst aro (read full)

Aventurine

Aventurine: Aventurine is a quartz mineral that is most often used to crave ornate animal or spiritual figures. Aventurescence is a term used to describe the shimmering of this stone that is caused by mica inclusions. The color is almost always green, however sometimes it is blue, or green with hints of blue, or brown. Aventurine is ideal for the carving of figures, but not the best material in the world for (read full)

Hematite

Hematite: Hematite is considered the most important Iron Ore mineral. Its crystals appear as reasonably thick. They may be tabular, or rhombohedral, and occasionally prismatic or pyramidal. Tabular crystals may form as rosettes, when they are called "iron roses." It also occurs as massive, compact, columnar, fibrous, reniform, botryoidal, stalactitic, foliated, and granular. When hematite forms in a renif (read full)

Indicolite

Indicolite: Indicolite is the blue sodium-rich variety of Tourmaline, and may come in all shades of blue, from light-blue, violet-blue to deep red or deep green. It generally appears quite a deep blue, even the color of dark blue ink, perhaps appearing green in one direction because of its strong pleochroism. Sometimes indicolite is an overall greenish blue, which, unlike the color of greenish blue sapphire, (read full)

Scapolite

Scapolite: Scapolite is a mixed crystal series, a complicated sodium calcium aluminum silicate group composed of calcium-rich meionite, and sodium-rich marialite. It appears as yellow, blue, pink, violet, or colorless prismatic crystals with a tetragonal system, mostly surface-growing, with perfect cleavage. These crystals are usually in aggregates that are massive granular, long columnar, dense, with vitr (read full)

Sodalite

Sodalite: Sodalite is a sodium aluminum silicate chloride in the Sodalite group with an isometric crystal system. Its royal blue forms are the best known. As a mineral, it is a principal component of lapis lazuli. It appears very rare as dodecahedrons, crystals with 12 faces, but usually it shows as compact masses, bright blue, white or gray with green tints. It is unsaturated and rarely appears with inclu (read full)

Phenakite

Phenakite: Phenakite is a rare beryllium silicate with a hexagonal crystal system. It an attractive hard mineral that resembles quartz. It appears as white or colorless rhombohedral crystals or stubby prisms terminated by multiple rhombohedral faces. Twinned crystals are also common. It may be colorless, yellow, pink, or brown. There are occasional chatoyant specimens, and four-rayed star stones with a brow (read full)

Microcline

Microcline: Microcline is a silicate of potassium and aluminum, and an alkali member of the feldspar group. It is the phase of this compound that is stable at low temperature. The feldspars are major constituents of the rocks on the earth's crust and comprise some of the most important rock-forming minerals. The four feldspars - orthoclase, sanidine, microcline and anorthoclase - comprise a group called the (read full)

Petalite

Petalite: Petalite is a lithium aluminum silicate that is an important ore of lithium. This mineral forms, rarely, as small crystals, which are commonly twinned. More often, petalite forms as large, cleavable masses. It may be white, grey, pinkish, yellow, or colorless. It is transparent to translucent, with a vitreous to pearly luster, and fuses with difficulty. It forms in very coarse-grained, acid igne (read full)

Euclase

Euclase: Euclase is a silicate with a monoclinic crystal system. It is considered a very rare gem of light blue color. It appears as long or short prismatic crystals, flattened and transparent. It is colorless, white, green, or blue, commonly a pale aquamarine or green, but crystals of a very fine dark blue (from iron) have been found at the Miami mine in Zimbabwe. Crystals are often striated. It (read full)

Moonstone

Moonstone: The variety name Moonstone is usually used to describe an optical effect and unlike most variety names it is not confined to a single species (The term is also applied to albite-moonstone, microcline-moonstone, labradorite-moonstone). But Moonstone most prominently refers to the orthoclase feldspar, Adularia Moonstone, a microperthitic association of orthoclase and albite) and rarely to Albite M (read full)

Sardonyx

Sardonyx: Sardonyx is a gem variety of reddish-brown colored sard with white or black banded chalcedony or onyx, used to make cameo with the raised black, red, or brown background. It is an example of a layer stone subvariety of Chalcedony, which in turn is a cryptocrystalline variety of Quartz.
Layer stones are multi-layered materials used in the art of gem-carving and engraving, also called glyptog (read full)

Platinum

Platinum: Platinum is a rare and precious metal that occurs as a Native Element, one of the rarest in the Earth's crust. It resembles silver, but it is less reactive and does not tarnish in air, and is thus considered a noble metal. Its greater hardness, higher density, and high melting point also distinguish it from silver. Like gold, another noble metal, the only common acid combination to dissolve it i (read full)

Carnelian

Carnelian: Carnelian is a variety of chalcedony, which is translucent and is red to reddish-brown. It may also occur as flesh-colored chalcedony, known as cornelian or carnelian. It is slightly similar in appearance to its relation, the dark brown chalcedony, sard. The colour of cornelian is caused by colloidally dispersed hematite. Other reddish chalcedonies may have been colored by heating since if they (read full)

Chrysoprase

Chrysoprase: Chrysoprase is a variety of chalcedony, usually black or leek-green in color. The most highly-prized variation comes in bright-green, apple- or leek-green. It has a waxy lustre. It occurs as mammillary or botryoidal masses. The microscopic quartz fibers have a radial structure. The pigment is nickel. Large broken pieces are often full of fissures with irregular colors. Its color can fade in sun (read full)

Emerald

Emerald: Emerald is the most prized variety of the mineral Beryl. It sometimes fetches higher prices than diamond. It appears as pale green to bright green. Though it is the green variety of beryl, not all gem-quality green beryls are called emeralds; yellow-green stones are called "heliodors;"soft blue-green or even pale green specimens are called "aquamarines." The typical color of emerald is a bea (read full)

Dumortierite

Dumortierite: Dumortierite is a variety of gemstone of basic aluminum borosilicate with an orthorhombic crystal system. It appears usually in columnar or fibrous, radiating aggregates, sometimes reddish brown, dark blue, violet-blue. On the rare occasions that dumortierite forms crystals, they are prismatic. Faceted or prismatic blue or violet samples are rare, due to scarcity of individual crystals. It is (read full)

Schorl Tourmaline

Schorl Tourmaline: Schorl is the black, opaque, sodium iron rich variety of Tourmaline, a complex borosilicate with a trigonal crystal system.
Tourmalines usually occur as long, three-sided prisms, which often have well-terminated ends. Sometimes they are found as parallel or radiating groups of long, thin prisms with striated ridges lining its surface. Its varieties span the widest color ranges in the mineral (read full)

Watermelon Tourmaline

Watermelon Tourmaline: Watermelon Tourmaline is a bi-colored/tri-colored/parti-colored occurrence of Tourmaline, and this appearance is usually a feature of the variety known as Elbaite. When cut parallel to its base, this tourmaline exhibits a rose-red center, a very thin colorless band parallel to the surface of the crystal, and a brown or green outer layer. In parti-colored tourmaline the core is nearly colorless an (read full)

Citrine

Citrine: Citrine is an attractive type of quartz, which is the commonest mineral on the earth's surface. But citrine itself is an uncommon macrocrystalline variety. Its yellow color brought about by its iron hydrate content, its reddish yellow from a trace of ferric iron. It forms hexagonal prisms, terminated by pyramidal shapes. Its faces are often striated, and the crystals twinned and distorted, having (read full)

Rutile

Rutile: Rutile with anatase and brookite is a trimorph of titanium oxide in the Rutile group.
It forms characteristic slender prismatic striated lengthways, variably terminated and often geniculate twinned crystals of the tetragonal system. Elbow- and heart-shaped (geniculated) twin crystals are common. It is hard, heavy, fragile, with perfect cleavage. It has a metallic to adamantine lustre an (read full)

Rubellite Tourmaline

Rubellite Tourmaline: Rubellite is the pink to red variety of Tourmaline, which is a complex borosilicate of aluminum and alkali, with iron, magnesium, and other cations. It is found as fine acicular crystals in rocks, or as large individual crystals grown upon matrix where they may reach a weight of several kilograms. Most form elongated and striated trigonal (three-sided) prisms and these are terminated with trigona (read full)

Dolomite

Dolomite: Dolomite is similar to calcite and sits along side it in limestone. It usually occurs as a secondary mineral, formed by the reaction of magnesium-bearing fluids seeping through the limestone. It may be colorless, or white to cream and even yellow brown, sometimes pale pink. It has a vitreous luster and is translucent. The faces of dolomite crystals are often curved, sometimes so acutely that th (read full)

Hessonite

Hessonite: Hessonite is the brown-orange variety of Grossular, a nesosilicate in the Garnet group, with an isometric crystal system. It appears with dodecahedral or trapezohedral crystals, cinnamon-brown to orange because of its iron content. Its color matches that of the oil of cinnamon. It also appears as golden-yellow, yellow-brown, or reddish-brown. It is very hard, heavy, fragile, has no cleavage. It (read full)

Kyanite

Kyanite: Kyanite is an aluminum silicate that occurs as elongated and tabular in groups of light-blue crystals darker toward the center, or flat, bladed crystals in schists and gneisses, or as radiating rosettes in quartz. It is trimorphous with sillimanite and andalusite. Kyanite is also known as disthene, meaning, "double strength." This refers to the fact that the hardness along the length of kyanite c (read full)

Rhodonite

Rhodonite: Rhodonite is a silicate of manganese-iron-magnesium, a mineral of the Pyroxene group, with a triclinic crystal system. It appears as rare tabular crystals, sometimes with rounded edges and wrinkled faces. It sometimes occurs as distinct, translucent to semiopaque crystals, but more often it is in compact, granular, ot crystalline masses of a patchy, pink, flesh red or brownish red color, often wi (read full)

Nephrite

Nephrite: Nephrite is a silicate of calcium, magnesium, and iron, containing fluorine and hydroxyl. It is an amphibole of the actinolite series. It occurs in all colors, also striped and spotted, but the most valuable color is green. The amphiboles of the tremolite-actinolite series usually occur as elongated, parallel, radiating, or even fibrous crystals; but the variety known as nephrite has a very compa (read full)

Scheelite

Scheelite: Scheelite is a mineral in the group of Sulfates, Chromates, Molybdates, Tungstates. It has the same crystal structure and outside appearance as powellite. But scheelite is a calcium-tungstate, while powellite is a calcium-molybdate.

In rocks, scheelite may appear as crystals like two pyramids connected at its bases, or pseudo-octahedral, or having table-like faces, with detectable p (read full)

Sillimanite

Sillimanite: Sillimanite is a grayish-blue aluminum silicate with an orthorhombic crystal system. It is trimorphic with andalusite and kyanite. All three have the same chemical compound but their atoms each arrange to create three different crystal forms. It appears as long, slender crystals without distinct terminations, in off-white, gray, brown, pale green, slate-blue, blue-green, and these crystals are of (read full)

Spinel

Spinel: Spinel is an extensive group of minerals in which magnesium may be replaced with iron, zinc, and above all, manganese. The hardness and fine colors of gem quality spinel, known as Noble Spinel, set it apart as a gem material from other types of spinel. It normally occurs as distinct octahedral crystals, as clusters also of octahedral habit, or as characteristic twins. The crystals are often iso (read full)

Oligoclase

Oligoclase: Oligoclase is a mineral of the plagioclase feldspar series, other members of which are Labradorite and Anorthite. It forms as tabular crystals, which are commonly twinned, with parallel or criss-cross twinning striations. It appears as massive, granular, or compact. It may show brilliant reflections from inclusions. It is light, transparent to translucent, with a vitreous luster and may come in (read full)

Spessartine

Spessartine: Spessartine is the manganese-aluminum variety of Garnet, belonging to its sub-group of aluminum garnets. Garnets are a group of silicate minerals that all crystallize in the isometric system and have the same chemical formula, but in a diversity of proportions, so garnets show up as different varieties, in a broad range of environments. Spessartine possesses the form typical of garnet crystals, w (read full)

Fluorite

Fluorite: Fluorite is a widely-distributed mineral in the Halide classification, and is now mined in vast quantities. It is a suitable mineral for collectors and is rarely cut as a gem, but massive varieties are carved as ornamental objects. It appears in cubes, octahedrons, dodecahedrons, while other forms are rarer. Compact, banded, and concretionary masses are frequently found. Most fine crystals of flu (read full)

Diamond

Diamond: In fact Diamond is the only gem material comprised of a single chemical element: pure carbon, like graphite. But the atoms in diamond have been forced into a compact, three-dimensional structure by the high pressures in the upper mantle, where it is formed. Thus diamond is much harder and has a higher specific gravity (3.52) than graphite . There is nothing comparable to it in hardness; it is ther (read full)

Rock Crystal (Quartz)

Rock Crystal (Quartz): Rock Crystal is the purest water-clear and colorless from of Quartz. It is known as mountain crystal (Bergkristall). It is the presence of impurities that gives other varieties of quartz their colors. It is found in beautifully formed crystals, often with complex terminations. These are usully bounded by the faces of six-sided prisms, which are almost always striated horizontally. Very often they (read full)

Topaz

Topaz: The transparent, colored crystals, which also have good luster, are widely used as gems.
Topaz is a silicate of aluminum containing fluorine and hydroxyl which occurs in a variety of delicate colors, nicely added by impurities. It is often found in short to long crystal prisms with pyramid-shaped ends, or just clean finished edges. It is often white, semiopaque, milky, or a faded yellow, (read full)

Zircon

Zircon: Zircon is a zirconium silicate with a tetragonal crystal system, and also contains thorium and uranium. It appears as stubby, prismatic, isolated or sometimes dipyramidal, like two pyramids connected at their bases; or in twins, colorless to yellow, red, brown, gray or green, in irregular granules. It is very hard, heavy, with indistinct cleavage, and shell-like fracture. It is sometimes perfect (read full)