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Smoky quartz

Smoky quartz or smokey quartz is a brown to black variety of quartz caused through the natural (or artificial) irradiation of aluminium-containing rock crystal.^[1]

[edit] Varieties

Morion from Brazil

[edit] Morion

A very dark brown to black opaque variety is known as morion. Morion is the German, Danish, Spanish and Polish synonym for smoky quartz.^[2]

[edit] Cairngorm

Cairngorm is a variety of smoky quartz crystal found in the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland. It usually has a smokey yellow-brown colour, though some specimens are a grey-brown.

Like other quartz gems, it is a silicon dioxide crystal, with a small amount of ferric oxide impurity which gives it the characteristic colour.

It is used in Scottish jewellery and as a decoration on kilt pins and the handles of sgian dubhs (anglicised: skean dhu). The largest known cairngorm crystal is a 23.6 kg (52 pound) specimen kept at Braemar Castle.