Mineral Guide > Mineral Gallery > Quartz gem stone

Quartz gem stone

The most abundant of all minerals, existing as a constituent of many rocks, composing of itself the rock known as quartzite or quartz rock and some of the sandstones and pure sand, forming the chief portion of most mineral veins. In composition it is silica, and when uncontaminated with any foreign intermixture it appears in clear, transparent crystals like glass or ice. Pure quartz is largely employed in the manufacture of glass, and is commonly obtained for this purpose in the form of sand. Quartz veins, with few exceptions, form the gangues in which gold is found.

Rose Quartz picture