Star Rose Quartz
Star Rose Quartz
Rose quartz is one of the most desirable and attractive varieties of quartz. Rose Quartz owes its unique soft pink hue to tiny traces of titanium and manganese. Sometimes, rutile needles are present in the rose quartz hence star-effect or asterism is seen.
Unlike Star Rubies and Star Sapphires, in Star Rose Quartz, asterism can be seen under any strong light. Usually star rose quartz can only be seen on cut and polished pieces of rose quartz. It is virtually impossible to recognize asterism in an unpolished specimen. Since the left and right eye see the star at different positions and the brain concludes from this stereo image that it must be situated above the rose quartz – looking at it for some time can make you feel dizzy as something is apparently “wrong”.
Star rose quartz is only found in a few locations in the world. Rose quartz is opaque to translucent microcrystalline quartz of pink to rose-red colour. Some rose quartz contains microscopic rutile crystals which are oriented at right angles to the c-axis of the rose quartz in three directions, each 120 degrees apart.
Rose quartz occurs at many pegmatite locations all over the world. It is commercially mined in Madagascar (Vorondolo Mountains, south-east of Antsirabé), South-Africa, Namibia, India, Germany, U.S.A. (South Dakota), and Brazil (Bahia and Minas Gerais). However, Star Rose quartz is found mainly in South Dakota, Vietnam and Madagascar.