Blue obsidian
Misleading commercial name for man-made, blue-colored glass. Sometimes with swirly “inclusions” but mostly crystal clear in various shades of blue. Sometimes clearly identifiable as glass…
Category: Gem or Scam? Library
Coquina jasper
Commercial name for a yellowish-brown to brownish-red sedimentary rock from the Indian Himalayas with light brown lines and arches. The curved lines are transverse sections…
Crimson Cuprite™
Commercial unregistered name for a combination of chrysocolla and cuprite from Mexico. Do you have a nice example of this stone and would like to…
Coromandel Stonewood™
Commercial unregistered name for petrified wood from the Coromandel Peninsula, New Zealand. Again, a fantasy name introduced by Robert Simmons (Heaven & Earth). Do you…
Cerasite (of Kikuchi)
Name for an unusual mineralogical phenomenon. This is a fusion of indialite and cordierite with a so-called trapiche habit (wagon wheel pattern). Usually largely or…
Dali jasper
Misleading commercial name for a red and white banded calcite. It contains no jasper or quartz at all. Inclusions of probably iron in the various…
Crack crystal / crackle quartz / cracked quartz
Commercial fancy name for quartz (or sometimes glass) with a variety of internal fractures/bursts in various colors (pink/yellow/orange), usually as polished tumble stones or polished…
Caribbean calcite
Commercial name for light blue aragonite-calcite from Pakistan/Afghanistan, regularly misrepresented or confused with hemimorphite, see below. Sometimes also called blue aragonite or aquatine (calcite), but…
Blue tiger’s eye
Commercial name for still unoxidized crocidolite with quartz, thus the precursor of tiger’s eye. The blue color is caused by 2-valent iron ions (Fe2+) compared…
Dalmatian jasper / stone
Commercial name for a light-colored, mottled stone reminiscent in appearance of the fur of a Dalmatian dog. Although the stone is often called Dalmatian jasper,…
