Chalcedony gemstone

Physical properties of chalcedony

Characteristics of chalcedony

In fact, it turns out that chalcedony is a whole group of different stones, which are varieties of translucent quartz.

The name "chalcedony", according to one version, comes from the name of the area in Asia Minor - Chalcedon. In the old days, even the stone was often called "Kalkidon".

Of course, not all chalcedony go to jewelers for processing, but only those stones that have a beautiful color or an unusual pattern.

In fact, chalcedony is usually understood to mean such stones that have a very pale tone - milky yellow, milky blue, greenish blue. For example, blue chalcedony (sky-colored stones) looks very beautiful. People even gave him very romantic and beautiful names - sapphirine, Mecca stone, moonstone or St. Stephen's stone.

However, there are chalcedony and very bright colors. And since there are a lot of chalcedony, they were divided into groups (by color). For example, stones with bright red spots are called heliotropes, pink ones are called carnelian, carnelians have a specific red color (meat), emerald green stones are chrysoprase, brown ones are sarders. Layered stones with a subtle difference in color are called agates, but if the color of different layers is sharply different from the neighboring ones, this is onyx.

Varieties of the precious stone chalcedony:

• common chalcedony - milky gray, bluish gray, bluish gray chalcedony
• carnelian - yellow, orange, red, pink, brown chalcedony
• sarders (sards) - reddish, chestnut, brown-brown chalcedony
• chrysoprase - green, emerald, bluish chalcedony
• agate - ring-banded chalcedony of blue, gray, reddish, pinkish, yellowish, white, brown, black colors
• onyx - banded chalcedony of a wide variety of colors
• jaspers - chalcedony of various colors and structures, many varieties
• plasma - onion green, olive chalcedony
• cacholongs - milky white chalcedony
• sapphirines - blue, blue, light purple chalcedony
• cersgats - waxy-yellow chalcedony
• myrikkites - gray chalcedony with blood-red inclusions of cinnabar, rare, highly valued