Search Mineralpedia – A Mineral Photo Database and Identification Guide
The name for Quartz is believed to be first applied in the Middle Ages to gangue in Saxony, Germany, however the word itself is of obscure origin. Quartz in the most abundant mineral on the surface of the Earth and can be found in a number of environments including hydrothermal veins and metallic deposits, within granites and granite pegmatite, in sandstones, quartzite, and in carbonate rocks. There are hundreds of varieties of quartz which include chalcedonies, agates, and jaspers among others that differ in color, habits, inclusions, and impurities. There are tens of thousands of localities for quartz. Quartz is piezoelectric, develops a charge in response to pressure, and pyroelectric, develops a charge in response to heat and can also be triboluminescent, meaning it can generate light when broken.
Ref. Handbook of Mineralogy, Anthony et al (1995) and MSA at http://www.handbookofmineralogy.org/pdfs/quartz.pdf
Named in honor of Professor Perry Dudgeon Quensel, who was a Swedish mineralogist and petrologist at the University of Stockholm at Stockholm, Sweden. Quenselite is found in just a few reported locations including Sweden, India, and Scotland. Mindat reports another set of localities that include China, Japan, Sweden, and the USA. The one locality that can be agreed upon is the type locality at Långban in Sweden. At the type locality, Quenselite occurs within “a metamorphosed Fe-Mn orebody.”
Ref. Handbook of Mineralogy, Anthony et al (1995) and MSA at http://www.handbookofmineralogy.org/pdfs/quenselite.pdf
Named for the feathered snake god, Quetzalcoatl, whom the Toltec and Aztec people believed was the god of the sea, in reference to the minerals sea-blue color. Quetzalcoatlite can be found only at its type locality at the Bambollita Mine at Moctezuma, Mexico, and within the United States in Arizona, California, and Utah. This rare mineral is found in oxidized hydrothermal deposits that contain tellurium.
Ref. Handbook of Mineralogy, Anthony et al (1995) and MSA at http://www.handbookofmineralogy.org/pdfs/quetzalcoatlite.pdf
Named for author of “The Complete Book of Micromounting” and contributor to the mineralogical studies of Mont Saint-Hilaire, Quintin Wight. Notable localities for Quintinite are found at one of the two co-type localities at the Jacupiranga mine in Sao Paulo in Brazil where it occurs in a carbonatite with gonnardite and donnayite. The second co-type locality is at the Poudrette quarry in Mont Saint-Hilaire in Quebec, Canada in a nepheline syenite. Quintinite can also be found in Russia in the Eastern Siberian region at the Korshunovskoye Iron mine, and in the Kola Peninsua in the Kovdor massif. Quintinite appears as orange-brown to yellow to colorless equant or prismatic crystals. It has two polytypes, one hexagonal, and one trigonal.
Ref. Minerals and their Localities, Bernard, J.H. and Hyršl, J. (2004)
IMA/CNMNC List of Mineral Names (2009) and Canadian Mineralogist 35 (1997), 1541
