![Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com – CC-BY-SA-3.0 [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons](https://www.gemsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Zunyite-238922.jpg)
Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com – CC-BY-SA-3.0 [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
An overview on Zunyite Jewelry and Gemstones. Covers details and essential information on the physical properties and characteristics of Zunyite gemstone.
Zunyite Value
The International Gem Society (IGS) has a list of businesses offering gemstone appraisal services.
Zunyite Information
| Data | Value |
| Name | Zunyite |
| Crystallography | Lsometric, typically in tetrahedral crystals, rarely octahedrons; twinned. |
| Colors | Colorless, grayish, pale beige—brown. |
| Luster | Vitreous. |
| Hardness | 7 |
| Density | 2.87 |
| Cleavage | Easy 1 direction; brittle. |
| Stone Sizes | Cuttable zunyite may be found in Japanese material but has never been reported. However, in 1986 enormous (up to 2 cm) crystals of zunyite were found in a prospect pit near Quartzsite, Arizona. These are perfect tetrahedra, pale beige—brown in color, in matrix. Minute areas of some of these crystals were perfectly transparent, colorless, and suitable for cutting into faceted gems up to ½ carat in size. |
| Luminescence | Fluoresces intense red (Quartzsite). |
| Spectral | Not diagnostic. |
| Formula | Al13Si5O20(OH,F)18Cl. |
| Pleochroism | None |
Optics: N =1.600.
Occurrence: At the type locality, the Zuni mine, near Silverton, Colorado, enclosed in guitermanite; also as a vein mineral in Ouray County, Colorado, and as an alteration product of feldspar in a dike rock in Saguache County.
Quartzsite, Arizona: large crystals.
Postmasburg, South Africa: in aluminous shales.
Kuni village, Gamma Prefecture, Japan: transparent tetrahedral crystals.
Algeria.
Name: After the type locality in Colorado.
