Somebody requested labradorite, so we’re gonna look at some labradorite! We’ll start with this very cool piece of silver sheen labradorite.
This piece is full of very tiny black rod-shaped crystals. These are crystals of ilmenite! Every piece of labradorite I have ever seen has been full of this stuff.
The crystals are so small that they are invisible to the naked eye, and they have nothing to do with labradorite’s flashy colors. (That happens due to how light interacts with labradorite’s crystal structure, and my microscope isn’t nearly powerful enough to show you that!) However, the ilmenite in this particular piece is doing something really interesting!
Because the ilmenite crystals in this piece of labradorite are all aligned in pretty much the same direction, they all catch the light at the same angle. At a macro level, this gives the stone a glittery effect, completely separate from its colorful labradorescence! This glitter is called aventurescence.
Next let’s look at a very clear and gemmy piece of labradorite! I bet we’ll be able to see the ilmenite really clearly in this one!
This piece has some really nice colors. Unlike in the silver sheen labradorite, the ilmenite crystals in this piece are just kind of growing every whichway, so they don’t make the stone sparkly.
Zooming way in, we can see some interesting formations. I’m not sure what causes this “dotted line” formation, but the ilmenite seems to do it a lot!
Ooh, this area is amazing!! A crack inside the stone has caused the labradorite to do some wild things to the light passing through it! It’s like how fractures in quartz can make little rainbows, but with the added optical effects of labradorescence.
Super gemmy labradorite being super gemmy~ Let’s zoom in on that.
It looks like a pastoral painting! Look at that GLOW.
Cool and colorful ilmenite and labradorite!
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