Ornamental Gemstones & Minerals

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

Howlite

Howlite: Howlite an opaque, massive mineral used for ornamental and utilitarian articles. is a rarity for collectors It has a monoclinic tabular crystal system with a subvitreous luster. The most common occurrence is in the form of a cauliflower. Howlite is found in borate deposits, with most ornamental pieces found from various sites in California (USA) and Mexico. It occurs as opaque white, and may be (read full)

Stichtite

Stichtite: Stichtite is a purplish to pink mineral many times found mixed with green serpentine. Its a hydrated magnesium chromium carbonate hydroxide mineral.With a hardness of 1.5 to 2 on the Mohs scale, stichtite is very soft and used mainly in carvings and ornamental pieces like necklaces or rings. Due to its softness rings and necklaces combine silver or tin to hold the smoothed down pieces in place. (read full)

Amazonite

Amazonite: Amazonite is a blue-green variety of microcline feldspar, named after the Amazon River (though ironically not found there). Its distinctive color comes from lead and water content. Popular in ancient Egypt and pre-Columbian Central/South America, it's now mainly mined in Colorado, Brazil, and Russia. The stone displays white streaks and can range from bright turquoise to deep green-blue. (read full)

Serpentine

Serpentine: Serpentine may refer to a single mineral but more often to a group of minerals including antigorite, chrysotile, clinochrysotile, and lizardite, which are altered products of basic and ultra-basic rocks. Rock composed of these minerals is called serpentinite. It comes in all the hues of green.
In mineralogy, serpentine is divided into three polymorphs, crystals with the same chemical substanc (read full)

Hambergite

Hambergite: Hambergite is a beryllium borate mineral in the classification of Nitrates, Carbonates, and Borates and is an extremely rare gemstone. It occurs as transparent colourless orthorhombic prismatic crystals which are usually well crystallized, sometimes twinned. Its colors range to white, white grayish, and yellowish white. Crystals are striated along the prisms. It is very hard and has one directi (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)

Jadeite

Jadeite: Jadeite is a silicate of sodium and aluminum, and is a member of the Clinopyroxene group of minerals. It is so called because it is the source of one of the ornamental materials commonly known as Jade. It has a monoclinic crystal system, and occurs as granular aggregates of small crystals, but has occasionally been found in crystals of a few centimeters. The color varies a great deal because of t (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)

Zoisite

Zoisite: Zoisite is a hydrous calcium aluminum silicate in the Epidote group, with an orthorhombic crystal system, three crystal axes at right angles to each other, all of varying lengths. It appears in elongated, prismatic crystals, with fine parallel lines on the prism faces and usually poorly terminated. It also appears frequently in formless grains, poorly-defined crystals, rodlike aggregates and gran (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)

Pyrite

Pyrite: Pyrite is an iron sulphide mineral with a cubic crystal system and is dimorphous with marcasite. It occurs as cubic crystals with striated faces, or in the form of pentagonal dodecahedra, usually well-crystallized, either isolated or in small, often well-formed groups, or as "iron cross" twins. It is a characteristic, brassy-yellow or pale-gold color, opaque and with a metal luster. It sometimes (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)

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)

Shell

Shell: Shell is the hard, protective, outer layer covering of certain creatures found in saltwater or freshwater, such as mollusks, snails, and turtles. This layer consists of calcium-carbonate and chitin, secreted by the soft tissue mantle of most mollusks. The inner surface of the shell is made from smooth nacre which covers the mantle.
Shell is used as inexpensive material for various purposes (read full)

Jasper Chalcedony

Jasper Chalcedony: Jasper is the opaque form of Chalcedony, the microcrystalline varieties of quartz that form concretionary deposits, partially of organic origin in the case of jasper. It is commonly microscopically fibrous, massive, and has a nearly wax-like luster. It has a lower density than ordinary quartz. It is the archetypal collectable beach pebble, dense, fine crystalline, translucent to opaque, and cons (read full)

Pearl

Pearl: Pearl is one of four main ornamental materials that are classified as "organic" gems, the other three being coral, ivory, and amber. About 92 percent of pearl is calcium carbonate, in the form of aragonite crystals, held together by an organic substance (concholin), which is identical to the horny outer layer of oyster shells, plus a small quantity of water. Mother-of-pearl has a simila (read full)

Gypsum

Gypsum: Gypsum is the most common sulphate mineral. It is usually the first evaporite mineral to be precipitated form water due to its poor solubility. Varieties include Selenite (or "spectacle stone), which is colorless and transparent; Satin Spar, the fibrous, translucent form with silky luster, which when cut cabochon shows pearly chatoyant effects; Alabaster, used for ornaments, which is firm, fine-gr (read full)

Grossular Garnet

Grossular Garnet: Grossular is a nesosilicate in the Garnet group, with an isometric crystal system. Together with uvarovite and andradite, the three are known as the "ugrandite garnets," an isomorphous series of calcium garnet minerals. It appears with dodecahedral or trapezohedral crystals of various colors; normally characterized by a green color, but also may be colorless, pale green or milky when pure, cinnam (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)