Little did I know when I started photographing some of the gemstones and minerals in my collection and others, that I would be drawn into worlds of beauty and intrigue by what was revealed to me in the photos. I discovered other dimensions and worlds of beauty beyond belief as the usually minute inner details of these stones were magnified and brought to life in the photographs.
An Amethyst crystal from Namibia with a sitting Buddha like hollow inside it. The hollow area was etched out of the crystal by a super heated water slution long after the crystal was formed by a similar, silica rich solution that eventually cooled down enough to precipitate out as the crystal in the picture. The re-introduced super hot liquid started dissoling the crystal from the inside out. The color of the amethyst was probably, in this case, caused by irradiation sometime in the growth phase.
A polished slice of a meteorite that is composed of large metal crystals (the patterns in the metallic areas) and yellowy green crystals of the gemstone peridot. This type of meteorite is known as a pallasite.
We usually think of sapphires being blue. This is a two color sapphire crystal still in the rock in in which it formed.
Blackberry like crystals of the cobalt rich mineral known as heterogenite that formed on a copper rich green mineral called malachite from the depths of Africa.
In this image you are looking 7 centimeters through a large ametyst crystal which has, among other things hollow, water filled inclusions with gas bubbles in them. Also visible are small red crystals of a mineral known as hematite which is iron oxide, the same stuff that makes our blood red.
A tempest in a tourmaline. The red and grey areas are the colors of this tourmaline from Mozambique. The long rod like inclusions are actually hollow tubes that have the same shape as the tourmaline crystal in which they formed as can be seen where they reach the surface. The hollow tubes are all orientated parallel to the length of the mother crystal and give an interesting reflection pattern when the stone is moved..
Rich red crystals of hematite (iron oxide) in a clear quartz crystal from Namibia resembling some of the Bushman paintings found in the area.
The mysterious inside of a black opal from Australia. The colors are an optical phenomenon caused by light being diffracted out into colors by the inner structure of the opal.
The delicate, almost organic swirls of color in a pink agate when magnified.
