Rose quartz
Pink quartz, and the colour is microscopic fibres of another mineral inside it rather than an impurity in the quartz.
Rose quartz is pink to rose-red quartz, and its colour has a different cause from the other quartz varieties. Amethyst, citrine and smoky quartz are coloured by trace elements or radiation acting on the quartz itself; rose quartz's pink comes from vast numbers of microscopic fibrous inclusions of a mineral related to dumortierite, dispersed through the crystal.
That explains two things about it. It is almost always massive rather than in well-formed crystals, and it is usually cloudy rather than transparent — the inclusions that colour it also scatter light through it.
Well-formed transparent pink quartz crystals do exist and are a different material: they are coloured by aluminium and phosphorus and fade in light, where the included kind does not. They are rare enough to be a collector's item.
How to identify it
Massive, translucent, pink, with quartz's hardness and no cleavage. The cloudiness is diagnostic in itself. A cabochon cut from a good piece often shows a faint six-rayed star in a strong light, which is the aligned inclusions reflecting.
Uses
Carvings, beads, cabochons and ornamental objects — its usual form suits it to those better than to faceting. Very widely sold in the crystal and wellness trade, which is where most of it now goes by volume.
Name origin
Simply the colour, in every language that has a name for it. The English name is nineteenth century and there is no older tradition attached to it, which is unusual for a stone this common.
How we know: checked recently · only one source, so there is nothing to cross-check it against · stated directly by the source.
How this connects
Where a connection has been confirmed by an outside reference, that reference is named beside it.
is a variety of
- Quartz — mineral · coloured by microscopic fibrous inclusions of another mineral rather than by anything in the quartz itself
is commonly confused with
- Moonstone — mineral variety · both translucent and cabochon-cut; moonstone has two cleavages and a directional glow where rose quartz has neither
is an alternative to
- Morganite — mineral variety · as a pink stone: morganite is transparent, harder and faceted, rose quartz is translucent and carved
Sources
- Wikimedia Foundation · Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (public domain dedication)
- Material WorldOur own writing