Quartz crystal

Found this interesting quartz crystal today, it has a black line running right through it from end to end. Right in the middle of it, dead center. Not sure what it is, at first I was thinking rutilated but all the pics of rutilated quartz I've seen look different. Now I'm guessing it's an inclusion of some sort. Thinking about getting it cut. I've never seen one like it.

Very nice. Get a pic with some light through please to make it pop! :Y:

Interesting. Looks like a shadow given that it runs perfectly parallel to the crystal faces but I'm only going on the photo.

So there's definately something running down the middle of the crystal?

I tried to get a good photo with light but it's not easy. Yep definitely something running down the middle of the crystal, parallel to the crystal faces. It's the thick line right in the middle, there is shadow above and below it on the photo.

That is really interesting. I've seen plenty of rutilated quartz before but never a piece where a single needle lines up so perfectly with the orientation of the crystal.

I've never found any rutilated quartz. Today I brought back about fifty crystals all covered in dirt, then I clean them up when I get home. Most of them turn out to be no good for cutting when you clean the dirt off, I ended up with 4 or 5 that would be OK. That's when I noticed this one- when I was scrubbing the dirt off with a toothbrush. Didn't see it when I picked it up.

Tried to get a better pic with light behind it:

That's really unusual! Can't say I've seen anything quite like it.

Could it be Tourmaline ?.....Never seen anything like it...Very Unusual.... 8)

LW....

LoneWolf said:

Could it be Tourmaline ?.....Never seen anything like it...Very Unusual.... 8)

LW....

Click to expand...

Tourmaline would be my guess as well, I've seen smokey with Tourmaline attached so it wouldn't surprise me in the least.... :Y:

Could be, there is a lot of black tourmaline only a few hundred meters away but I've never seen any in that spot. No other crystals have even had any tourmaline on the outside.

Is it definitely one single Crystal? Or could there be 2 separate crystals joined neatly and the black impurity is running along those Crystal faces? Perhaps it's an original seed Crystal of some sort that the quartz then grew around?

Yeah it's definitely just one crystal and the black line is right in the middle of it. There is a small fragment of another crystal stuck to the end of it, which you can just see in the top photo at the right end of it, on the top.

G'Day All

It is hard to tell from the photos but that form of growth is not uncommon. It could be tourmaline or even chlorite or biotite or the area where the crystal was growing could have been subject to fluids from a couple of sources. All crystals grow concentrically, that is they will grow from the centre outwards. So anything that formed first would be in the centre of the crystal barring any twinning or other crystal growth. It could also just be a result of the changing nature of the quartz fluid as the crystal was growing with radioactive smokey quartz forming first and as the fluid changed the quartz became less contaminated. It really needs to be looked at under a microscope to determine if the growth in the centre is a different mineral or not.

Araluen

I can honestly say that of the thousands of quartz crystals I've excavated over the years, at a number of sites some of which are over a thousand kilometres apart, I've never seen one quite like that.

I've found what appear to be rutile and black tourmaline needles in quartz - but never anything so perfectly aligned.

It's a beaut specimen anyway!

Thanks Lefty and SWright. I've looked at it with my little microscope and I can't say for sure that it's tourmaline, I think it's probably not. So it could be something else, maybe chlorite or biotite as SWright suggested. Must be a reason why it formed right up the middle. Tourmaline and rutile seem to often be randomly placed in crystals on different angles. Got me wondering now if there would be any more like that there or if it was just a one off. Also I initially thought it would be a good one to cut, now I'm thinking maybe I should just leave it as it is.

Yeah I would suggest tourmaline too

Very good information

At a spot north of Inverell NSW, there are massive chunks of quartz all over the ground with black tourmaline crystals through them.
The quartz at this location is the common white/pinkish variety and the tourmaline is in straight needles of varying thicknesses.
Thus I can see no reason why tourmaline shouldn't be found in clear quartz crystals as well.

Well I found another one of these with the black line in it today. Same as the other one except this one is not right in the middle, it's sort of off to one side a bit. Still running straight up the length of the crystal though: