Tiffany Stone / Opalized
Fluorite / Bertrandite
click to enlarge: Opal Fluorite 4 polished 8/20
- 02
- From my personal collection... 61 x 40 x 25 mm - 1.8 ounce
59 x 44 x 21 mm - 1.8 ounce
50 x 47 x 25 mm - 1.8 ounce
57 x 52 x 36 mm - 3.8 ounce
Rare
Opalized Fluorite!
This material is one of the most scarce,
beautiful and unusual stones in the world, this stone only comes from
one very small area of beryllium mines in the Utah west desert where
they mine (the 4th lightest element) beryllium for use in missile nose
cones and many other high-tech metallurgical uses. It is not open to
the public for collecting and very little of this material sees
anything other than the ore crusher to extract the about 1% to 2%
beryllium contained in the opal tuff. Try to find this exquisite
gemstone and you'll see that it's not only very rare, it is
very scarce. It is a soft to hard opalized stone that forms in
very small to 100+ pound "nodules", composed of predominantly
opalized fluorite (blues, purples and whites), often with many
other minerals such as quartz, dolomite, rhodonite, manganese,
beryllium and other surprises. It often has a "crackled" appearance
and is sometimes called "Tiffany Stone", "Bertrandite" "Purple Opal"
or "Ice Cream Opalite". I call it Opal-Fluorite.