A warm welcome to all who are interested in helping to classify my stone. I went with it to the Geological institute so far , they used a scanner where the stone was placed and it showed the elements - silicon,oxygen,barium,chlorine . I would add that the scan was done quickly and perhaps not accurately, even one of the staff present at the time confirmed this and I was left with this information which I first heard on some forum. I don’t want to put the name of the institute and the forum here. From my observations it is a translucent stone very hard because it did not undergo the impact of a large hammer through the mesel (chisel) has numerous inclusions bubbling streaks shiny gold flecks. I know it is difficult to recognise from the photos but perhaps someone of you has encountered a similar stone.
Welcome to the community, Maciej!
Barium - There are 250 recognized mineral species containing barium. This link has a great explanation for the element and its presence as a mined resource element.
Here is the IGS article on Barite (Baryte) It is the only gemstone material I am aware of where barium is a key element.
As for the stone you have, it will be difficult to identify with images alone.
Did the Geo Lab test reveal the elemental percentages of barium detected? If the ratio of barium to Chlorine was 1:2 it could represent the presence of Barium Chloride. A toxic barium salt that is common in barium ores of hydrothermal origin. It seems the stone you have could be primarily Quartzite if the content of Sodium to Oxygen is also a 1:2 ratio.
Did the report present a numerical percentage of each element? The gold flecks could be Iron Pyrite. Was there any Iron and Sulfur present in the lab report?
Cheers!
Thank you for your reply, they offered to check the stone free of charge I did not get any report of this test . The assistant of the lady who agreed to the test herself admitted that these might not be an accurate reading , as I mentioned that it would rather be a more accurate analysis if several windows on the stone were polished. Anyway I will do a complete analysis which I will pay for together. With a certificate. To confirm everything 100%. So far I have looked at a large number of stones and I have seen similar quartz to this one, in citrine I have not noticed these shiny flakes for barite is too hard from what I have read surely a Mohs scale above 7 because neither mountain crystal nor amethyst make a scratch on it. Interesting is this inclusion which looks like a mermaid with a sword in my opinion. Perhaps it is some kind of plant it is hard to tell.
https://youtu.be/rkEBbgn_eh8?si=jwsW_HqLqmCmu2Kq link do filmu
Maciej,
Thank you for the update for the tests of the stone. I would not pay for any complete analysis on the stone until you have more information, that would be worth spending money.
I highly recommend you find a local gem/mineral club and ask them for help identifying the stone, first. These clubs are very helpful in making initial identification of an unknown rock/stone. A local rock/mineral shop might be able to help identify it or be able to show you where the nearest rock club can be found if one is not advertised locally or on-line.
The mermaid silhouette is indeed interesting because there seems to be an conchoidal inclusion of darker material that terminates with the “mermaid”. That could be an indication of hydrothermal processes.
Cheers!
I was with him at the international jewellery and gemstone fair held in the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw I talked to many people who exhibited their collections and none of them could classify with conviction that this is the stone in question what I heard,from a collector from Ukraine that this is a quartz : milky citrine he said after a long while of looking at it . Only that I have not noticed such inclusions in citrines perhaps I do not know much yet . I do know for sure that nature can surprise, just like this stone which one day appeared on the window sill of my family home, but not about that now. I know that the last scan may not have been accurate. I am thinking of cutting it in two and polishing the planes . From what I have read this should give a more detailed analysis I just have a hunger to know more about it and no harm in spending money on information . Regards , thanks for your enthusiasm and advice Troy .
.
Nie tylko ja dostrzegam tam zwierzęta proszę napisać co o tym sądzisz. Postaram się o lepsze zdjęcia na przyszłość
the rarest one of the most valuable barium containing gem is benitoite… BaTiSi209… quality gem material is found only in one site in the world and has been long mined out. Other locales in Japan, Arkansas, Montana have benitoite but only as small grains as accessory minerals in a host rock, or are not of gem quality.
if citrine or other quartz, the inclusions look more like cracks filled with darker material… human visual perception likes to see images and order in random shapes. quartz crystals in vein cavities, quartz veins themselves are hydrothermal. Lucky if you can find gold in a quartz vein…gold will be native gold… Agates, geodes with internal crystals can form at ambient temperature with wet and dry cycles…typically forming in gas bubble voids in lava flows and dissovled holes in limestone. A mildly akaline pH helps with silica dissolution with wet, crystal growth during drying out of silica solutions makes for saturation and crystal growth during dry phases… however, quartz will form across a wide range of temperatures. alternation between layers of quartz as crystal growth or agate rings can be used to estimate temperature of formation by analyzing heavy and light oxygen isotope ratios.
The research gate reference is open sourced. The delta 18 O refers to the definition below.
It is defined as the deviation in “per mil” (‰, parts per thousand) between a sample and a standard:
δO18=((O18/O16)sample(O18/O16)standard−1)×1000
The reference is below:
Compilation of oxygen isotope data (δ 18 O) of agates from …
[image]
ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net › figure › Compilation-of-…
](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Compilation-of-oxygen-isotope-data-d-18-O-of-agates-from-different-origins-SHR_fig4_347076796)
δ 18 O values of +16.4 to +33.4‰ were obtained from agate occurrences globally in a variety of felsic and mafic host rocks [47, 58] . The variation of~10‰ in …
Thank you for the hint, it was left to make a few facets and polish it to glass - this is what the specialist advised me and to appear at the gemological institute then they will x-ray it and the results should be more detailed . After the examination I will certainly inform and report the analysis on the forum. I personally think that jewellery would be nice from it
you’ve got a nice stone there. Hope that you get it ID’d… it certainly will make for a nice looking cab or even cut… cutting could present a challenge due to the internal cracks in it… you mentioned that it was resistant to hammering and chiselling. That is toughness not Mohn’s hardness… quartzite and other quartz stones can be very tough… the chemical analysis done could have been done with an XRF scanner, Raman spectrometer or any number of analytical machines… silicon and oxygen being main constituents would indicate a quartz stone or silicate stone… Barium and chlorine could be present in trace amounts rather than enough to form another mineral… gold flecks in a rock are usually micas… biotite and phlogopite mica can rarely contain barium…native gold should have shown up with XRF… home testing for specifc gravity and Mohn’s hardness can narrow down the possibilities… I hope you get a more definitive ID… when you do, let us know, Thanks for sharing