Gemstones Beginning with "Q"

Quartz, which makes up 12 percent of the earth's crust, is a family of minerals with the same chemical composition and similar physical properties. There are two varieties: macrocrystalline quartz (crystals recognizable to the naked eye), which includes stones gemologists classify as varieties of the quartz species, and cryptocrystalline quartz (microscopically small crystals), which is generally known as chalcedony. Impurities in the quartz result in its array of different colors.

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