Neighborhood Rocks Search this Site

Quartz ("KWARTZ")

		We sometimes find large chunks of pure quartz in our neighborhood. Most of them seem to have broken out of a type of rock called pegmatite. To learn more about quartz, scroll farther down this page.
Big chunks of quartz

Crushed pegmatite rock, the source of most of the large chunks of quartz in our neighborhood.

	How to recognize quartz
	Other names for quartz

	This form of quartz is cloudy white, a bit pinkish, or clear.
	Broken crystals look a bit like broken glass
	You cannot scratch quartz with a nail or knife. (See more about the scratch test.)
	Also, quartz does not bubble in vinegar or acid.

Other names for this type of quartz:

	Whitish quartz is called "Milky Quartz," and pink quartz is called "Rose Quartz."
	Big chunks of quartz are sometimes called "Bull Quartz."
	We found lots of large quartz crystals in 50-pound bags of pegmatite gravel sold as "Royal Gorge."

Here are some ways to classify quartz (by grouping it with similar types of materials):

	Quartz is a mineral.
	The type of quartz that we found formed as part of an igneous rock, called pegmatite.
	Pegmatite is an intrusive igneous rock, because it formed as melted rock cooled slowly, deep under the Earth's surface.

To learn more about this type of quartz, please
go to our page on pegmatite rock.

Find

Collect

Name

Link

Home

Neighborhood Rocks is part of the Salt the Sandbox Web.
For more information visit the Salt the Sandbox home page.

This page was created on May 2, 2001, and it was last updated on July 27, 2002.