Handmade Jewelry - Amazonite in Handmade Jewelry

Russian Amazonite Earrings

 

Hands down amazonite is one of my favorite stones. It's beautiful, fascinating, and versatile. All of these qualities make it a very nice stone to use in handmade gemstone jewelry. It's sometimes difficult to find good quality amazonite.

Amazonite is a member of the feldspar family. From the viewpoint of mineralogy, feldspar is the most common mineral on earth. It makes up 60 percent of the earth's crust. Feldspar is a group of minerals that contain aluminum and silica ions.

The color of amazonite ranges from light blue to deeper green-blue, to teal green, often with white striations. It also is found with black tourmaline and sometimes pyrite. It's not uncommon to see streaks or sections of yellow in amazonite. A very beautiful variety is Peruvian amazonite, which is rather rare and is a very brilliant blue-green color.

Amazonite can be very interesting because it can have a lot of depth and schiller, which comes from the light reflecting off the different planes of the crystal in the stone. Depending on the structure and polish of the stone, amazonite can have an iridescent quality. I've seen these qualities in larger pieces of amazonite.

It is said that amazonite is named after the Amazon river, although it is not found near there.The most important deposits are in Colorado, Russia, Africa and South America, among other places. Amazonite is soothing to the nerves. It gives calmness and releases irritation. It is thought to give optimal health and ease worry. It is also said to help a person see both sites of a situation.

The hardness of amazonite is 6-6.5 on the Mohs scale of hardness with 10 being the hardest.