MOLDAVITE CRYSTAL
ORIGIN:
Product Details
- CRYSTAL/MINERAL
- MOLDAVITE
- location
- Chlum, Czech Republic
- SKU
- 120404
- DIMENSIONS
- 2.2cm x 2.1cm x 0.3cm (0.8in x 0.8in x 0.1in)
- GEOLOGICAL FORMATION
- Moldavite is a Tektite, a natural glass formed by a Meteorite impact. About 14.8 million years ago, a body struck southern Germany and created the Nördlinger Ries crater. The force melted the surface rock and threw it into the air, where it cooled into glass as it travelled. It came down roughly 250 kilometres to the east, across what is now southern Bohemia and Moravia. The material takes its name from the Moldau, the German name of the Vltava River.
As a glass it has no crystal structure. It is mostly Silica, around 75–80%, with Aluminium, Potassium, Calcium and Iron making up the balance. The Iron produces its colour, which runs from olive and bottle green to brownish green. Hardness is 5.5–6 on the Mohs scale, with a specific gravity of roughly 2.3–2.4 and a refractive index near 1.48–1.50. The surface is its signature. Millions of years in acidic soil have etched it into fine ridges, pits and grooves, so no two pieces share a surface. Inside, elongated bubbles and swirled, glassy streaks called lechatelierite record the melt as it formed.
Vrábče lies in the Budějovice basin of South Bohemia, one of the Czech Moldavite fields. The strewn field is closed. No new material arrives, and the supply cannot be replenished. Moldavite has been worked as an ornament since the Upper Palaeolithic.
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MOLDAVITE CRYSTAL
Sale priceAED 860.00