shop what's new gem journeys
wishlists my shopping bag
 

rose quartz - the love stone
Rose quartz's soft beautiful color -- ranging from peach to milky pink to clear rose -- is completely unique, unlike any other pink mineral species. Since inclusion-free 'gemmy' specimens are rare, it is mostly used for beads and as an ornamental stone.
Sites in the state of Mineas Gerias, Brazil, produce the most fabulous specimens of rose quartz crystals known.
The area also produces some small spheres of rose quartz displaying asterism as a six-rayed star. Asterism in rose quartz is due to minute oriented rutile needles that exsolved after the rose quartz crystallized.
Other rose quartz sites in the US include deposits in Maine, Connecticut, New York and California.
 the most unique
Rose quartz is a pink crystalline variety of quartz, rarely seen as crystals. The soft rose color of this quartz can come from tiny crystals of rutile (titanium dioxide) or from light interacting with tiny fibrous crystals of dumortierite (aluminum boro-silicate) -- which can be white, pink, and blue.

rose quartz, insitu; green horn mountain county park, ca
photo: green horn mtn

Phosphorous in the quartz may also be a factor in producing the pink color.
While low-quality material is used for various types of ornamental work, intermediate -- more translucent material -- is often carved in to bowls, animals, and sometimes cut into spheres.
Significant deposits of high-quality rose quartz exist in Brazil and Madagascar. It is also found in many other countries, including the US.
Tremendous amounts of rose quartz have been mined from one of the world's largest deposits -- the Scott Mine in the Black Hills, some 8 miles from Custer, South Dakota -- which is said to have been mined by members of the Scott family, off and on, since 1881. It's been claimed that the Scott quarry has produced more rose quartz than any other mine in the world. Reserves here have been estimated at a whopping 600,000 tons -- so there won't be any rose quartz shortage in the near future.

symbolic attributes

birthstones
modern January
geographic
state mineral South Dakota
miscellaneous
anniversary 2nd
metaphysical
astrological gem Capricorn, Taurus, Libra
energy receptive / yin
planet Venus
element air