01
What makes the smoke?
Irradiation activates colour centres associated with aluminium-related defects in quartz.
Tone and zoning are visible features. Their appearance alone cannot tell natural and artificial irradiation apart.
Stone Explorer → Smoky Quartz
Smoky Quartz, side by side.
Compare 6 natural smoky quartz specimens, then follow one pathway from quartz growth to smoky colour.
In our shop: smoky quartz pieces →
File 05 · 6 natural specimen records
Two ways in · pick one
Each specimen opens its own file.
Evidence
What the evidence can tell you
Photographs differ in light and scale. Compare visible features; use the source record for specimen identity and locality.
02
Are these different minerals?
All 6 records describe smoky quartz specimens. The mineral species is quartz.
Morion names very dark smoky quartz. A dark name or a different locality adds no new mineral species.
03
Can colour reveal an age?
Rock age, quartz growth and the development of smoky colour describe different parts of the history.
A darker specimen is not a clock. A geological age needs evidence tied to a particular deposit.
04
What does the record establish?
The photograph sources identify these reference specimens and their reported localities.
Origin and treatment for a BE. piece belong to its Stone Origin Record. The photographed specimens are separate from the product lot.
Sources and image credits
Sources
Smoky quartz is a colour variety of quartz. Morion is a name for its very dark end. The name “smoky topaz” confuses quartz with a different mineral. Natural and artificial irradiation can produce smoky colour. A photograph records appearance; the treatment history needs its own record.
Handbook of Mineralogy · QuartzMineral evidence
Quartz identity and physical properties.
Open sourceFritsch & Rossman · GIA, 1988Mineral evidence
Aluminium-related defects, irradiation and smoky colour centres.
Open sourcePhelps, Lee & Morton · 2020Mineral evidence
A study of quartz growth in the Stewart pegmatite, California. It supplies a geological example, not a growth time for these specimens.
Open sourceMindat · Smoky QuartzMineral evidence
Colour-variety identity and geological occurrences.
Open sourceMindat · MorionMineral evidence
A name for very dark smoky quartz.
Open sourceSmoky and milky quartzCC BY-SA 3.0
Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Reference specimen, separate from BE. product stock. Resized where needed and displayed with responsive cropping; no colour adjustment.
Photograph source · CC BY-SA 3.0Zoned smoky quartzCC BY 4.0
Lunamothminerals · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Reference specimen, separate from BE. product stock. Resized where needed and displayed with responsive cropping; no colour adjustment.
Photograph source · CC BY 4.0Les Courtes smoky quartzCC BY 3.0
Sailko · CC BY 3.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Reference specimen, separate from BE. product stock. Resized where needed and displayed with responsive cropping; no colour adjustment.
Photograph source · CC BY 3.0Formation cutawaySchematic pathway
One pegmatite-pocket pathway. Smoky quartz also occurs in other geological settings. Schematic, not to scale. The illustration does not identify a deposit or a product source.
Colour depth and zoningMaterial reference
Smoky quartz ranges from pale grey-brown to the very dark material called Morion. Clear, smoky and milky regions can occur together. A phantom follows an earlier growth surface; a colour band alone is not enough to identify one. Thickness, light direction and exposure affect the apparent colour in each photograph.
Open sourceGrowth forms and CairngormMaterial reference
Prisms, groups, sceptres and Gwindel describe crystal growth. Cairngorm is a Scottish regional and historical name associated with smoky quartz from the Cairngorm mountains. It is not a separate mineral species or a general locality label for every brown quartz crystal.
Open sourceGrowth precedes colour centresMaterial reference
Smoky colour involves irradiation acting on aluminium-related defects in quartz. Natural geological irradiation and controlled irradiation can produce similar colour centres. A laboratory can identify quartz, while the origin of its irradiation may remain indeterminate. Neither a dark tone nor a natural crystal outline proves untreated colour.
Open source
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