What is Amazonite?

It ain't agate or jasper !

My dad collected rocks for over half a century here in the West. Nearly all of the rocks I inherited are mostly some type of “silica” –  silicon dioxide. I wrote a blog about that too. Amazonite fits the pattern in that it’s just a more complicated type of silica. The chemical formula for the base rock is KAlSi3O8. Note the bold type. SiO2 again but with added stuff, in this case “a green tectosilicate mineral, a variety of the potassium feldspar”. Wikipedia also reports that Archeological discoveries show that Amazonite has been used for jewelry for “well over three thousand years”.

When I first discovered the few pieces of Amazonite in the rocks I inherited from my dad, I had no idea what they were. Recently, I’ve taken a second look. I remember now that my dad went to the region around Pikes Peak in Colorado with his favorite rockhounding buddy, Bill Branson (See Bill’s humor at this blog.) for a week or so. It was an unusual trip because he and Bill went alone on this trip. I was just a kid at the time. I remember that my dad brought back a sour dough “starter” and we enjoyed great biscuits and bread for over a year after that. And I also remember pictures of my dad and Bill taking a dog sled ride in the snowy mountains.

It happens that the Pikes Peak region in Colorado is one of the few places in the world where Amazonite can be found. Wikipedia lists nine locations in Colorado, all of them around Pikes Peak. That’s why my dad and his rockhound buddy Bill went there.

For many years, people assumed that Amazonite derived its green color from copper, like most other green rocks. More recent analysis reveals that the color comes from PbO, lead monoxide, in concentrations that can be harmful. Using it as jewelry isn’t harmful because the lead is bound inside the crystals. But some of the “mystical” sites suggest ideas that could be harmful. Don’t let babies or children put it in their mouth and never treat it like some sort of alternative medicine.

A casual Internet search yields dozens of the usual sites that make fantastic claims about Amazonite’s mystical powers. According to these web sites, it will give you a “much-needed float down your inner river of tranquility”. Another site claims, “healing properties that benefit the throat, thyroid, and nerve pathways.” I don’t know about any of that, but I do know that they’re charging some high prices. One of the “prestige” auction sites reports that a piece about the same size as this one sold for “Winning Bid: $2,575”. HooEEE! Way too much. But like a lot of rocks, other prices were all over the map.