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Chalcedony

Silicate Minerals

Chalcedony is an aggregate of cryptocrystalline or microcrystalline silica, a mass of individual silica crystals too small to be seen without magnification, composed primarily of quartz with minor amounts of intergrown moganite. It has a waxy luster and may be semitransparent or translucent, and it takes a wide range of colors, most often white to gray, grayish-blue or brown. In this atlas it is the mineral species named for the many banded and colored silica gemstones, so the gemstones that record chalcedony as their species can be grouped and compared on one entity.

Facts
Kind
Mineral 1
Chemical Formula
SiO2 (silica) 1
Hardness (Mohs)
6.5 1
Commonly cited range is 6 to 7 on the Mohs scale; 6.5, the midpoint, is used here.
Classification
Classification
Silicate Mineral 1
Use
Gemstone 2
Connections

Classified As

Entity-backed identity for the material classification this material already carries as an enum fact, pointing at the class subcategory of the same name. The enum fact itself stays on the entity unchanged.

In Discipline

In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Chalcedony (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Chalcedony, lead paragraph
    Chalcedony is an aggregate of cryptocrystalline or microcrystalline silica, or in simpler terms, a mass of individual silica crystals that are too small to be seen without magnification.
  • Chalcedony, article text
    It is composed primarily of quartz, with minor amounts of intergrown moganite.
View the Source
2. Chalcedony (Wikipedia)
  • Article body
    Many semi-precious gemstones are in fact forms of chalcedony.
  • Article body, gemstone
    Many semi-precious gemstones are in fact forms of chalcedony.
View the Source
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