The Five Most Colourful Minerals On Earth [Infographic]Business 2 Community
By Danny Ashton 17 hours ago
One of the rarest and most coveted gems in the world, a giant blue diamond with 29.6 carats potentially worth tens of millions of dollars, was recently discovered in a South African mine by the company Petra Diamonds.
According to the firm, the “exceptional” diamond was discovered in the Cullinan mine, near Pretoria, which is owned by Petra since 2008.
However, this is not a first for Cullinan. Back in 1905, it was in this mine where workers found the largest rough diamond ever unearthed. But other notable diamonds were also found in the mine so far, including another blue diamond found last year with 25.5 carats. This humongous rock was sold for 16.9 million dollars, for example.
Yes, you could say color gives any mineral a twist, makes it more beautiful and desired, even if that mineral is the more abundant opal or quartz. Nevertheless, color is always an important feature, but why are some rocks so colorful and others don’t? That is an interesting question…
We could say it is a natural process, but if you look closely the color of a mineral can always change depending on the rock you are looking at. While some colorful minerals can have constant characteristics, others have a range of different colors that can be affected by light, for instance. The quartz is one of these rocks, as well as fluorite, both represented in this following infographic.
That is why minerals can be classified according to two different groups: the ones that always have the same color and the ones whose color is likely to vary. This variation can be caused by the presence of foreign elements or changes in its crystal lattice and that is how we get amazing gems like the ruby.
Isn’t the world of minerals extremely fascinating or what?
http://news.yahoo.com/five-most-colourful-minerals-earth-infographic-235941480.html
