Sea salt has a briny taste and a bit more complexity than rock salt because it contains some minerals from the ocean. Rock salt, on the other hand, is already found in solid form and is simply mined. This type of salt is also known as halite and often comes in larger crystals or has a coarser texture.

Today, billions of quartz crystals are used to make oscillators for watches, clocks, radios, televisions, electronic games, computers, cell phones, electronic meters, and GPS equipment. A wide variety of uses have also been developed for optical-grade quartz crystals.

Calcite: Shows a rhombohendral crystal shape. Halite has a cubic crystal form, so it cleaves into perfect cubes. It has roughly the same hardness as calcite, and is colorless. Although taste is an important characteristic, caution students to avoid tasting minerals; some minerals have very unpleasant tastes.

Quartz and calcite, if well cleaned, should have no taste. They are useful as blanks. Cleaning specimens well and rinsing them well is important.

cubic crystal system

Industrially, fluorite is used as a flux for smelting, and in the production of certain glasses and enamels. The purest grades of fluorite are a source of fluoride for hydrofluoric acid manufacture, which is the intermediate source of most fluorine-containing fine chemicals.

A plentiful, affordable, and colorful gem, fluorite is popular with collectors worldwide. Also prized for its color-change and distinctive multi-color banded varieties, this beautiful stone has so many appealing features, it’s no wonder that Roman historian Pliny the Elder named fluorite his “most precious substance.”

However, despite being a softer collector’s stone, fluorite is still quite suitable for protected jewelry such as pendants, brooches or earrings. Multicolor banded beads of fluorite are sometimes used in bracelets, but care should always be taken when wearing fluorite.

purple color

The quintessential fluorite color is purple although fluorite in its purest form is colorless. Various trace elements is what gives fluorite its range of colors. The beauty of fluorite is in its ranging hues. Some fluorite colors are vivid and intense while others can be pale and lifeless.

They aid in mental clarity and are perfect for boosting your mental health. You can place Fluorite stone in your favorite meditation space, or wear it on your body as you enter that state of being. Or you can just hold it lightly in the palm of your hand.

Fluorite is water soluble, and once it enters the body, it can cause skeletal fibrosis. This painful disease is rampant in rural India and China where regulations do not protect citizens from nearby mines.

Some diamonds fluoresce when they are exposed to ultraviolet (UV) rays from sources like the sun and fluorescent lamps. This can cause them to emit a bluish light or more rarely, a yellow or orangy light. Once the UV light source is removed, the diamond stops fluorescing. 2.

Most sodalite will fluoresce orange under ultraviolet light, and hackmanite exhibits tenebrescence.