Indholdsfortegnelse for January - February 2026 i Rock and Gem

I mentioned to a friend that I’d be writing an article on this year’s Tucson Gem and Mineral Show® theme of Red, White and Blue. “Oh, yeah?” he asked. “What minerals are you highlighting?” When I replied neptunite, natrolite, and benitoite, my friend looked puzzled. Peering over the rims of his glasses he asked, “Where’s the red?” Well, let me explain… BRILLIANT BLUE BENITOITE ON A BED OF WHITE NATROLITE The story of benitoite is now familiar to mineralogists, amateur and professional alike. Adopted as the state gemstone of California in 1985, barium titanium silicate is a rare blue beauty found in significant gem-quality quantity in only a single region at the headwaters of the San Benito River in southeast San Benito County, California. Even there, it’s not easy to…

Victoria Stone is one of those materials that immediately captures the attention of observers because of its inherent beauty and also because of its increasing scarcity on the market. The internal structure is mesmerizing. It draws your eyes into soft, swirling patterns beneath a shiny, glassy polish that sets it apart from both natural and synthetic counterparts. This unmistakable stone has inspired and influenced many synthetic stones over the years, though none have captured the chatoyant, fluid movements and glow like the original. What adds to the allure is its large array of colors, from vibrant emerald greens, ocean blues, rich purples, gray, black and white. Each shade is unique. Finding workable material today is a challenge and every finished cabochon is a nod to a past era. ''Victoria stone…

Silver (Ag) is a native element and one of Earth’s most prized precious metals. Chemically, it belongs to the transition metal group and occurs both in pure metallic form and in combination with sulfur, arsenic, or antimony in various minerals. With atomic number 47 on the periodic table, its name derives from the Latin argentum, meaning “white” or “shining,” a nod to its brilliant luster and enduring appeal. Historic Silver Few metals have shaped human history like silver. Mined for over 5,000 years, it has always dazzled with its mirror-bright shine, softness under the hammer and sheer versatility. The earliest workings in Anatolia and the Aegean, around 3000 B.C., produced a metal that quickly became a marker of wealth and power. By the Classical world, silver’s destiny was clear: coinage.…

The celebrated American glass sculptor Dale Chihuly once described glass as “the most magical of all materials.” And Chihuly, among the world’s most influential contemporary artists, speaks from experience. By combining bold colors and eccentric forms on a monumental scale, he revolutionized glass artistry and helped elevate the medium from craft to fine art. Chihuly’s glass art, showcased in 200 museums and 50 major exhibitions worldwide, has dazzled millions and broadened our perceptions of glass itself. Because glass is so ubiquitous, it is often taken for granted. But glass has a long and fascinating history. And, as Chihuly said, its properties are nothing short of magical. NATURAL GLASS The first glassmakers replicated what already existed in nature. The most abundant form of natural glass is obsidian, an extrusive igneous rock…

Is Earth Rusting the Moon?? The Moon resides nearly a quarter of a million miles from Earth, give or take, but that great distance doesn’t appear to protect it from Earth’s “pollution.” According to several space and planetary scientists, the Moon is rusting, and oxygen from Earth is to blame. Writing in Geophysical Research Letters, an international team led by Xiandi Zeng (Macau University of Science and Technology, Tapai, China) describes evidence that streams of charged particles blow like wind from Earth to its celestial companion during brief five-day time windows each month. Those particles include oxygen along with hydrogen and nitrogen. The oxygen ions seem to be turning certain lunar minerals into the common ferric oxide mineral called hematite. In other words, rust! The team conducted a lab-based simulation…

A lucky few find their life’s passion in a bucket of gravel. This was the case for Tom Mitchell, owner of Mitchell Jewelry Studio, who tried his hand at looking for gemstones as a way to enjoy the outdoors in his new home. Moving from California to Florida, Tom and his wife were looking for ways to spend time outdoors, so they traveled to a rockhounding business in northern Georgia that provided material for screening. FROM PEBBLES TO BUSINESS Sorting through the pebbles, he found rubies, sapphires and amethysts. He also found a new direction. After the success of his first bucket of gravel, he ordered another. Tom says his wife told him, “You’re having too much fun.” She joined the activity and discovered an emerald the size of his…

Gold is everywhere in the news these days. With prices climbing steadily, and sometimes by $50 in a single day, it’s no wonder people are starting to ask questions. Maybe you’ve asked yourself the same. What about that old jewelry box sitting in the back of the closet? If it’s filled with gold and gemstone jewelry, the thought might cross your mind: maybe it’s time to turn this forgotten treasure into something useful. Cash it out and take that trip you’ve been dreaming of. Trade it in and roll the value into a new piece of jewelry you’ll actually wear. Or maybe use one of those old rings to fix something you love but haven’t had the budget to repair. Whatever your situation, understanding your options is the first step.…

Mosaics are images formed from pieces of hard materials. At a casual glance, mosaics look like paintings; however, they are individual pieces fitted together, whether tightly or with visible grouting to make one cohesive image. They can be chips of rough material, tumbled, cut and finished stones, or some combination of those, and can include relief works. Ancient mosaics often used square-shaped stones and glass four-sided tesserae. While mosaics are still created today, very few living artists carry on the tradition, as it is extremely time-consuming. The Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art in Oakbrook, Illinois, near Chicago, is famous for its antique and modern collections of exquisite jade carvings and lapidary art, and most intriguing are their mosaics. Their anthology includes both Florentine and Roman mosaics, dating from the late…

USA Rocks! In the December 2020 issue of Rock & Gem, Gary Knutson, a member of the Mt. Hood Rock Club, shared his display shaped as the state of Oregon, appropriately made using Oregon thundereggs. The display won the Mt. Hood Club’s Project of the Year in 2017. He recently expanded his lapidary efforts and made a display shaped like the United States. Specimens used include the following: Oregon obsidian, tree agate, Oregon sunset jasper, pink rhodonite, Oregon polka dot agate, Brazilian agate, Utah pink, labradorite, Maury Mountain plume, Texas agate and cathedral agate. This list is not exhaustive, as Gary says he’s not sure of where all the specimens are from. Each is cut and ground to fit together. They are glued to a piece of clear acrylic that’s…

When the 2026 Winter Olympics open in Italy in February, nearly 3,000 athletes from 91 countries will be vying for medals, most in the various disciplines of the marquee sports of skiing, skating, snowboarding and bobsledding. But there will also be 120 athletes from 13 countries competing in the lesser-known sport of curling—sliding 44-pound stones across 146 feet of ice toward 12-foot-diameter circles. Curling was once a rather obscure pastime practiced only in a few cold-climate countries. But since its introduction as an Olympic medal sport in 1998, public interest in curling has grown steadily, with attention focused on the game’s unusual skill-set and teamwork requirements, along with the curling stones themselves. ''Today, an Olympic curling stone has a maximum circumference of 36 inches and a minimum height of 4.5…

The Swiss are known for pocket knives, fondue, chocolate, and accurate timepieces as well as a train system that works like clockwork. That train system can take you to Jungfraujoch, “the madden saddle,” the highest observation platform in Switzerland at 11,333 feet in elevation, where on a clear day, you can see Switzerland, Italy and Germany. Travel by train, cog railroad or gondola from Interlaken to Grindelwald and Kleine Scheidegg, continue through a tunnel in the Eiger mountain to this UNESCO World Heritage Site at the Top of Europe, visited by more than 500,000 people each year. Step off the train into a station deep inside a mountain in the Swiss Alps, walk directly into a glacier, Switzerland’s Ice Palace and marvel at this engineering feat at the top of…

An accessible and easy-to-reach locality with abundant azurite and malachite in veinlets and on the surface of broken basalt is just south of Lordsburg, New Mexico. The site consists of two large cuts in Cretaceous basalts and is in the northern part of the Virginia subdistrict of the Lordsburg Mining District. It can be reached by a 2WD vehicle and some hiking, but a 4WD vehicle is needed to get close to the collecting sites. HISTORY OF LORDSBURG Before the Southern Pacific Railroad arrived in 1880, the hills south of Lordsburg were prospected for silver, with the first claim made on April 7, 1870. In 1873, the district was visited by G. K. Gilbert, a geologic assistant with the Wheeler Survey mapping the American West through a series of U.S.…

The gemstone cut for this article is notable in three ways. The design, Quintet, uses an 80-index gear; the finished gemstone is very bright and it is a large display gemstone. These three attributes contribute to making this spectacular finished gemstone. CREATING PERFECT SYMMETRIES A faceting machine index gear is used to create perfect design symmetries. The 96-index is used in an estimated 95% of all gemstone designs because it has many divisors (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32, 48 and 96), supporting many symmetries. Multiple symmetries allow for more complex patterns by creating layers of geometric shapes on top of each other. In this design, Quintet, a perfect five-fold design is created. The 96-index gear is not divisible by 5. Luckily, my ULTRA TEC faceting…

In the Badlands of South Dakota, just outside the small town of Belle Fourche—pronounced “Bell Foosh”—a new attraction has taken shape that every dinosaur enthusiast should see. The Dinosaurs of the Hell Creek Museum is part hands-on exhibit, part science center and part active research lab. Only an hour north of Rapid City, the museum offers visitors of all ages the rare chance to experience real fossils from one of the most famous fossil beds in the world: the Hell Creek Formation. It’s a must-see destination for families visiting the Black Hills, Mount Rushmore and other nearby landmarks. THE DREAM BEHIND THE MUSEUM The museum is the realization of a longtime dream shared by paleontologist Walter Stein and his wife, Heather. More than a decade in the making, their vision…

Celestial folklore is not unfamiliar with tales of treasure from above. Arabian and Greek legends dating to the 7th century believed opal came from the heavens, if not the tears of Zeus himself. Egyptians saw malachite as divine crumbs of stars cast off by a sky goddess, and the meteoric origin of moldavite was linked to the Holy Grail. All the while, crystals were falling from the sky and hiding in plain sight. Say hello to the humble snowflake, and to American meteorologist Wilson Alwyn ‘Snowflake’ Bentley, who really knew a natural gem when he saw one and (fortunately for us) shared what his discerning eye discovered with the world, as the first known person ever to take detailed photographs of snowflakes and record their individual features. Deep in the…