Rocksday

Smoky Quartz

Brown to nearly black quartz colored by natural radiation acting on traces of aluminum.

Smoky Quartz specimen
Photo: James St. John, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

How to identify smoky quartz

  • Transparent to translucent brown or gray quartz.
  • Six-sided prisms with pointed ends.
  • Hardness 7 and no cleavage.

Often confused with

Where it's found

  • Swiss Alps
  • Cairngorm Mountains, Scotland
  • Pikes Peak, Colorado
  • Minas Gerais, Brazil

Uses

Gemstones and collector crystals.

Rock tumbling

Great for tumbling.

Did you know?

It's Scotland's national gem, called cairngorm after the mountains where it was found.

Think you could spot it from a blurry close-up?

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