4.5″ Blue Smoke Colombian Lemurian TW617 Online

4.5″ Blue Smoke Colombian Lemurian TW617

4.5″ Blue Smoke Colombian Lemurian
Approx. Dimensions: 4.5x1x0.75 inches
Approx. Weight: 85 grams
Locality: Santander, Colombia
Acrylic stand and putty not included, but may be purchased separately in our Acessories section.

These Blue Smoke Lemurians are from a single pocket of material mined in Santander, Colombia. It has been theorized around the internet that the blue “smoke” is the inclusion of the lithium mineral Cookeite, which was thought to form fibrous structures within the quartz. We sent a sample of these crystals to a lab for testing, and the results came back that there were no inclusions of Cookeite. In fact, there were no inclusions present in the “fibrous” structures at all! The structures were empty tubes, and after several attempts to test anything left over in those tubes, there were no traces of any mineral detected. This leads us to believe that the mineral(s) that formed the tubes dissolved completely and very quickly in the formation of the quartz, or there could possibly be a completely different explanation!

The blue color can be observed when the quartz is illuminated with a strong light or direct sunlight, and makes for a fantastic play of light. This color is due to the Tyndall effect, where light is scattered by particles within the material. Under the Tyndall effect, longer wavelengths are transmitted more while shorter wavelengths are diffusely reflected by scattering. The Tyndall effect is also the reason why blue chalcedony appears yellow or brown when strong light shines through it.