smoky quartz crystal cluster - teaching specimen from Novo Horizonte, Bahia, Brazil The vegetation was gradually compressed

The vegetation was gradually compressed to form peat

As it weathers

Tremolite is most often found in metamorphosed dolomitic limestones

white gypsum sand from Lake Lucero

In the 1920s and 1930s sand was barged from Long Beach

smoky quartz crystal cluster - teaching specimen from Novo Horizonte, Bahia, Brazil The vegetation was gradually compressedTeaching smoky quartz cluster from Municpio Novo Horizonte, Bahia, Brazil. This area is famous for smoky quartz, often with rutile inclusions in the crystals. Smoky quartz forms from natural gamma radiation released by surrounding rocks. The radiation causes aluminum atoms, which replace silicon atoms in the crystal lattice, to transfer an electron to a neighboring positively charged ion, often Li+, forming an aluminum metal color center that darkens