Home » Gemstones » Microcline Value, Price, and Jewelry Information
A cluster of microcline twinned crystals (10,0 x 9,5 cm) By Tom Epaminondas (mineral collector) and Eurico Zimbres (FGEL/UERJ) (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Microcline is a variety of feldspar. The only microcline you are likely to encounter is amazonite.
Amazonite cabochons up to almost any size are available; the material is usually sold by the pound to hobbyists. The same applies to perthite. The Amelia material has fine color and translucency, but perfect cleavage adds fragility.
Wax impregnation, hides fractures, common, moderately stable, detect with hot point. Irradiation, produces blue amazonite from white microcline, rare, stable, undetectable.
Microcline crystals, associated with smoky quartz, are popular mineral specimens from the Pike’s Peak area of Colorado. The color of amazonite ranges from pale green to dark green and blue-green. Pinkish orthoclase is also often present as an intergrowth.
Name
Microcline is from Greek words meaning small and inclined because the cleavage is close to but not quite 90°.
Occurrence
Microcline occurs in acidic alkali-rich plutonic rocks; also in rocks such as pegmatites, granites, syenites, and schists.
Pala, California; Maine: New York: North Carolina.
USSR; Norway; Sweden: Germany; Italy; Japan: South Africa.
Colorado (Pikes Peak area): amazonite.
Amelia Courthouse. Virginia: finest amazonite in the United States.
South Dakota: perthite.
Canada: perthite, especially Ontario and Quebec.
Brazil: fine amazonite.
India (Kashmir District): amazonite.
Australia (Harts Range).
Amazonite
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