Quartz & included quartz.

Smoky quartz ↗

Mineral variety

A gray-to-brown variety of quartz, with a palette that can feel almost transparent in one piece and deeply smoky in another. Rough, cut and polished examples reveal very different sides of the same mineral.

Quartz · clear quartz ↗

Mineral species / featured variety

Clear, colorless quartz is often called rock crystal. It offers an approachable way to notice natural crystal faces, internal inclusions and the difference between a grown surface and a polished one.

Amethyst ↗

Mineral variety

Amethyst brings purple color to the quartz family, from delicate lavender to stronger violet. It can appear as an individual crystal, a sparkling lining inside a cavity or a carefully cut gemstone.

Rose quartz ↗

Mineral variety

Rose quartz is the pink variety of quartz, commonly with a softly cloudy, translucent appearance. It is often encountered as a rounded bead, a carving or a substantial piece of rough rather than a sharply formed crystal.

Citrine ↗

Mineral variety

Citrine is yellow-to-orange quartz, often transparent enough to cut into bright facets. Its warm palette can be pale and quiet or more saturated, but color alone does not tell the story of how it was produced.

Tiger’s eye ↗

Gem material

Tiger’s eye is best known for a silky band of light that shifts as you turn the polished surface. Golden and brown stripes make its texture especially easy to notice in beads and domed cabochons.

Green aventurine ↗

Rock / aggregate

Green aventurine is a quartz-rich material containing tiny reflective inclusions. Turn a polished piece gently and its soft green surface may reveal scattered points of sparkle rather than a single moving stripe.

Prasiolite ↗

Mineral variety

Prasiolite is pale green quartz, often very lightly colored in a thin or small cut gem. It offers another way to explore how familiar quartz can be described by a gem variety name.

Rutilated quartz ↗

Gem material

Rutilated quartz encloses slender rutile crystals within quartz. Fine gold-colored needles can cross clear areas, making the inclusions the focus rather than something a cutter tries to hide.

Ametrine ↗

Mineral variety

Ametrine combines purple and yellow zones within quartz. A cutter can frame those contrasting areas into a single gem rather than blending them into one uniform shade.

Hawk’s eye ↗

Gem material

Hawk’s eye is a blue-gray chatoyant quartz-rich gem material related to tiger’s eye. Its moving reflection comes from a strongly directional fibrous texture.

Phantom quartz ↗

Growth feature in quartz

An internal outline can record an earlier growth surface. Chlorite or other inclusions may accent it, but not every green inclusion is chlorite. A phantom is a growth feature, not a new species.

Garden quartz ↗

Included quartz / trade name

Landscape-like inclusions inspire this trade label. Garden quartz need not contain a phantom, and a phantom need not have a garden-like scene. Identify inclusion minerals analytically rather than from appearance.

Tourmalinated quartz ↗

Quartz with tourmaline inclusions

The host is quartz and the dark inclusions are described as tourmaline. Needle shape or black color alone is not enough to identify each inclusion; rutile-bearing quartz is a different description.

Strawberry quartz ↗

Included quartz / variable trade name

This loosely applied name usually concerns pink-red quartz with visible inclusions. It is not the same identity as rose quartz; quartzite and glass can also be sold under similar names. Ask what was actually identified.

Super Seven ↗

Included quartz / marketing name

A marketing label does not prove seven mineral phases. Amethyst and smoky quartz are quartz color varieties, not separate species; any claimed inclusion assemblage needs sample-specific identification.

Rabbit hair quartz ↗

Included quartz / appearance label

Fine hair-like inclusions create the description. Their chemistry is not fixed by the trade name. GIA has studied differently colored examples; avoid calling every needle rutile or assuming one universal cause.

Herkimer diamond ↗

Locality / habit name for quartz

These double-terminated quartz crystals are not diamonds. Reserve a New York locality claim for documented material; a similarly shaped quartz from elsewhere is not proof of Herkimer provenance.

Pietersite ↗

Quartz-rich chatoyant aggregate

Swirling chatoyant domains distinguish the appearance. Research on Namibia and China shows microstructures and formation histories that should not be reduced to “broken tiger’s eye” in every sample.

Grape agate ↗

Botryoidal quartz / misleading trade name

Grape-like spheres describe the habit. Material sold under this name may show crystalline quartz surfaces and is not automatically banded chalcedony merely because “agate” appears in its name.

Red tiger’s eye ↗

Color / treatment trade variety

Red material sold as tiger’s eye may have been heat treated. Color alone does not establish natural color, treatment status or a separate mineral species.

Red aventurine ↗

Aventurescent quartz-rich aggregate

A red quartz-rich aggregate may sparkle from reflective inclusions. It is different from aventurine feldspar or sunstone; a red glittering glass imitation is another material entirely.