Judging quality
Prize saturated blue-green with crisp white perthite streaking and clean crystal form. Dull, chalky or heavily bleached material is common in tumbled goods.
Feldspar
Amazonite
Blue-green microcline feldspar, colored by trace lead. Colorado crystals grown alongside smoky quartz are among the most striking mineral specimens produced in North America.
Care
Fades under prolonged sunlight. Two cleavage directions mean it chips easily.
History & lore
Named for the Amazon River although no confirmed deposit has ever been found there — an eighteenth-century misattribution that stuck.
Cultural history, recorded as tradition rather than as medical or scientific claim.
Common questions about Amazonite
- What is Amazonite?
- Blue-green microcline feldspar, colored by trace lead. Colorado crystals grown alongside smoky quartz are among the most striking mineral specimens produced in North America.
- How hard is Amazonite and what is it made of?
- Amazonite is a Feldspar-family mineral with the composition KAlSi3O8. It crystallizes in the triclinic system and rates 6-6.5 on the Mohs hardness scale. It occurs in turquoise, green, blue.
- Where does Amazonite come from?
- Notable localities for Amazonite include Colorado, USA, Russia (Kola), Madagascar, Ethiopia.
- How do you tell good Amazonite from filler?
- Prize saturated blue-green with crisp white perthite streaking and clean crystal form. Dull, chalky or heavily bleached material is common in tumbled goods.
- How do you care for Amazonite?
- Fades under prolonged sunlight. Two cleavage directions mean it chips easily.
See it in person
Photographs only go so far
Both rooms are open six days a week, and there is always someone happy to pull pieces out of the case so you can compare them under the light.