Lazulite
Lazulite
is a relatively rare mineral that gets easily confused with other,
more well known, minerals. Not only does it sound like the silicate
mineral lazurite, it looks like it too! Well, at least it has very
similar color to lazulite as well as the carbonate, azurite. The
beautiful azure-blue color that is seen in all three of these minerals
makes them very desirable as ornamental stones. Azurite is reactive to
acids and lazurite forms infrequent and different crystals than
lazulite.
Lazulite is in a solid solution series with the mineral scorzalite. A
solid solution series is a set of two or more minerals that have a
couple of elements that substitute freely for each other. The
lazulite-scorzalite series ranges from the magnesium rich lazulite to
the iron rich scorzalite. The rarer scorzalite does not differ
appreciably, except that it tends to be darker, less transparent and
denser than lazulite.
Lazulite is named from an Arabic word for heaven in allusion to its
sky blue color. Crystals are more common than massive forms, but
localities with gem grade crystals are scattered and scarce. The
crystals can be well shaped and show a nice monoclinic dipyramidal to
tabular form. Lazulite although most crystals are dull, some
exceptional specimens can be quite spectacular.
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