BE. Geological Codex

Geological FactGarnet is a silicate mineral group. In this entry, the reading centres on almandine: an iron-aluminium garnet associated with deep red body colour, density, and an isometric crystal system. Its weight is part of its language.

Selection StandardThe standard is not a brighter red. It is a red that can stand. We look for depth held in the body of the stone, tonal continuity across the material, and enough density for the colour to read as gravity rather than decoration.

Geological Dictionary NoteAlmandine garnet can be read as iron held inside a stable silicate framework. Its identity is not softness or shine. It is mineral mass, internal colour, and a crystal body formed under geological pressure.

Geological FactGold sheen obsidian is natural volcanic glass: lava cooled before atoms could organise into a full crystal lattice. It is not a black crystal. It is a stopped volcanic event, with internal reflective structures preserved inside darkness.

Selection StandardThe standard is a continuous dark field, a gold flash that stays restrained, and sheen that depends on angle. It should read as light emerging from inside, not glitter applied to the surface.

Geological Dictionary NoteObsidian is natural volcanic glass rather than a fully crystalline mineral. Gold sheen obsidian contains internal reflective structures that produce metallic luster at certain angles. The gold is an optical effect inside a glassy dark body.

Geological FactSmoky quartz is macrocrystalline quartz. Trace aluminium can substitute for silicon, and natural irradiation can form colour centres around that substitution. Smoky colour is not dirt or surface pigment. It is lattice condition made visible as depth.

Selection StandardThe standard is smoky colour with depth and remaining translucency. The tone should be continuous, and the darkness should slow the light without making the stone visually closed.

Geological Dictionary NoteSmoky quartz is quartz with brown to gray colour related to colour centres, commonly involving trace aluminium and natural irradiation. The smoky tone belongs to crystal structure, not to a surface layer.

Geological FactClear quartz is crystalline silicon dioxide that allows visible light to pass with less obstruction. Clarity is not absence. It is structure open enough to let light through.

Selection StandardThe standard is clean transparency, clear surface polish, and a body that allows light through without milky interruption or visual heaviness.

Geological Dictionary NoteClear quartz is crystalline SiO2 with high visible-light transmission. It can look empty, but materially it is low chromophore content, limited scattering, and a continuous crystal framework.

Geological FactRose quartz is pink quartz. Its softness comes from colour carried within the mineral body, not from a layer placed on the surface. The quietness of the pink comes from being internal.

Selection StandardThe standard is continuous pale pink, gentle translucency, and softness that still has mineral body. The goal is not a stronger pink. The goal is softness that does not go flat.

Geological Dictionary NoteRose quartz is the pink variety of quartz. Its soft colour and hazy translucency should be understood through internal microscopic causes rather than surface pigment. The pink is carried by the quartz body.

Geological FactAquamarine is blue to blue-green beryl. Its colour is commonly associated with iron inside the beryl crystal structure. The colour is carried by the mineral body, not by surface mood.

Selection StandardThe standard is whether the blue appears carried by beryl from within, whether clarity allows the colour to move, and whether the stone remains open rather than coated or opaque.

Geological Dictionary NoteAquamarine is blue to blue-green beryl. Its colour is commonly related to iron in the beryl structure. It is beryl first; the water-like appearance is the optical expression of that structure.

Geological FactPhantom quartz preserves an earlier stage of crystal growth inside later quartz. A former surface becomes visible because mineral material marked the boundary before new quartz enclosed it. The past is no longer outside the stone.

Selection StandardThe standard is a readable phantom boundary, a clear quartz body, and enough optical separation for the earlier surface to remain legible inside the present crystal.

Geological Dictionary NotePhantom quartz contains the visible outline of an earlier crystal-growth stage. Included material marks a former surface, and later quartz growth encloses it, preserving the boundary inside the crystal.

Geological FactMoonstone is feldspar whose glow comes from internal layered structure. Light enters the stone, scatters between fine feldspar layers, and returns as adularescence. This glow is not pigment.

Selection StandardThe standard is whether adularescence clearly emerges from inside the stone, whether the layered structure remains stable, and whether the glow returns from within rather than sitting on the surface.

Geological Dictionary NoteMoonstone is feldspar known for adularescence. The glow comes from light scattering between fine internal layers, often explained through feldspar intergrowth. The optical effect comes from structure, not pigment.

Geological FactPrehnite is a calcium aluminium hydroxyl silicate that can form in cavities, fractures, and low-grade geological environments where space remains available for growth. Opened space becomes a place where structure can continue.

Selection StandardThe standard is glow from the translucent body, internal light in pale green, and darker inclusions that read as boundary rather than visual dirt.

Geological Dictionary NotePrehnite can form in cavities, fractures, and low-grade metamorphic or hydrothermal environments. Epidote or darker inclusions may be read as coexisting mineral records inside a translucent green body.

Geological FactRutilated quartz forms when quartz holds rutile, a titanium dioxide mineral, as needle-like inclusions inside its body. The lines are inside the stone.

Selection StandardThe standard is readable rutile, a clear quartz body, space between lines for light to pass, and enough contrast for the needles to remain precise. More rutile is not automatically better.

Geological Dictionary NoteMineralogically, rutilated quartz is quartz with rutile inclusions. Quartz is the transparent SiO2 framework; rutile is TiO2, a separate tetragonal mineral. The visual identity comes from contrast between clarity and line.

Geological FactCitrine is yellow quartz: the same silicon dioxide structure returns light as warmth rather than purple, smoky, or fully clear. The yellow is not colour painted onto the surface.

Selection StandardThe standard is transparent body, gentle yellow return, and warmth that remains light. It should not turn heavy, overly orange, or visually dyed.

Geological Dictionary NoteCitrine is yellow quartz. In quartz, colour arises from chemical conditions and lattice state, not just from the SiO2 framework itself. Citrine is quartz returning light through a yellow colour state.

Geological FactGreen phantom quartz preserves a growth surface marked by green mineral material inside clear quartz. What looks like landscape is not a pattern placed on the stone. It is an earlier boundary suspended inside volume.

Selection StandardThe standard is whether the internal terrain holds, whether clear quartz creates optical distance from the green inclusion, and whether the depth reads as structure rather than decorative mist.

Geological Dictionary NoteGreen phantom quartz is quartz with green mineral matter marking phantom boundaries inside the body. The green region is an internal growth record, not a surface pattern.

Geological FactHematoid quartz forms when iron oxide, often hematite, is preserved inside a quartz body. The red is not added after polishing. It is iron made visible because silica holds it.

Selection StandardThe standard is iron colour visible inside quartz, red or red-orange continuity, and enough transparency for the relationship of containment to remain visible.

Geological Dictionary NoteHematoid quartz is quartz containing hematite or iron oxide inclusions. Red to red-orange colour is mineral matter carried by SiO2, visible through the quartz body.

Geological FactGreen rutilated quartz is read here as quartz holding green needle-like inclusions inside its body. The green lines belong to the clear interior.

Selection StandardThe standard is a clear quartz body, readable direction in the green needles, and density that creates line without collapsing the stone into opacity.

Geological Dictionary NoteHere, green rutilated quartz is understood as quartz with green needle-like inclusions. Its defining feature is linear mineral suspension inside a clear body.

Geological FactKyanite forms when aluminium-rich rocks are reorganized under pressure. Its body does not respond the same way in every direction: one axis can yield, another can resist. This mineral carries direction inside itself.

Selection StandardThe standard is saturated blue, visible blade-like cleavage, and polish that preserves direction rather than flattening the stone into ordinary blue.

Geological Dictionary NoteKyanite is Al2SiO5, a polymorph associated with high-pressure metamorphic environments. Its key feature is anisotropy: hardness and cleavage change with direction.

Geological FactAmethyst is a quartz variety whose purple colour is related to trace iron and natural irradiation history. The purple is not a surface layer.

Selection StandardThe standard is not only the deepest purple. It is purple that reads as internal depth, with tonal continuity and enough crystal life for the colour to be held rather than flattened.

Geological Dictionary NoteAmethyst is the purple variety of quartz. Its colour is related to trace iron and irradiation history in the quartz lattice. The colour belongs to crystal structure itself.

Geological FactBlue needle quartz is a quartz body preserving very fine blue linear inclusions. The blue is not on the surface. It appears when light, angle, and slow looking meet inside the crystal.

Selection StandardThe standard is a clean quartz body, visible blue needles, and optical haze that keeps airiness rather than becoming cloudiness.

Geological Dictionary NoteBlue needle quartz can be read as quartz containing fine blue linear inclusions. The blue effect depends on inclusions suspended inside transparent SiO2 and the way light catches them from different angles.

Geological FactSuper Seven is a commercial name, not a single mineral species. In this codex it is read as a quartz-family matrix able to hold multiple mineral and colour events in one body. The geological fact is capacity, not singular purity.

Selection StandardThe standard is whether layered mineral events remain distinct, whether the matrix stays coherent, and whether deeper inclusions read as depth rather than muddiness.

Geological Dictionary NoteSuper Seven is a trade name. In BE. context, it is treated as a quartz-family matrix carrying multiple internal mineral records, such as quartz clarity, amethyst zoning, rutile lines, and darker inclusions.