What is Druzy?

One of my jewelry creations combined black nacre pearls and druzy. No one inquired about the unusual pearls. Customers asked instead, "what is druzy?"

Nature's glitter

Druzy steals the show when appearing in custom-made designer jewelry . It's the glitter that catches the eye and attracts attention to the piece. For artists of handcrafted jewelry designs, like me, incorporating druzy puts the piece on the best seller list.

Crystals on rock

Druzy is crystal-covered rock. Tiny quartz crystals form on the surface or within the cavities of other rocks. Like a geode, such crystals often form on the inside of a stand-alone stone. When cracked open, a geode reveals crystals on the inside. When the crystals are small, and look like a coating of glittering stardust, it's called druzy.

Formation

Because rocks don't reveal their origins, we surmise their formation as follows. From time to time and occuring many millions of years ago, molton rock would be forced to the surface from some cataclysmic event. Tremendous heat and pressure caused gases within the molton rock to expand. The gases created cavities when the surrounding rock cooled and solidified.

Later, as the rock lay there with vacated cavities, water containing natural minerals filled them and flowed through. After eons of such flow through, the rocks would dry, leaving the minerals from the evaporated water as a crystalline deposit on the surface or within the host rock.

Colors

The minerals that deposited create the color of the crystals in druzy. Often, the host rock shows the same color as the crystals, but differing crystal/host-rock color combinations are not uncommon.

The minerals that deposit as crystals on druzy include cobalto calcite (pale pink druzy), uvarovite (green druzy), hematite (deep red druzy, from the iron oxide), psilomelane (black druzy), chrysocolla (a blue druzy the color of turquoise), malachite (shows as black, gray, or silver, not green), pyrite (a golden gray), carnelian (a rust-colored red), and of course, quartz (white druzy).

When druzy comes in colors other than these, the stone has been dyed. For example, see hot-pink drilled druzy beads in Druzy Slideshow here.

Metallic vapor coating

Vapor deposition of certain metals can improve the color of a dull druzy or impart the distinctive color of the metal. Titanium, gold, and platinum are the metals most commonly used for such coatings.

Because the vapor-deposited coating is so thin, very little of such precious metals are consumed. Thus, a gold-coated druzy, for example, gives the look of glittering gold without the big pricetag of solid gold jewelry.

Titanium vapor coating creates a rainbow of blue, purple, red, and greenish druzy crystals. The gunmetal gray of elemental titanium takes a backstage to the deeply cool colors so characteristic of titanium-treated druzies.

Durable

Druzy exhibits Mohs scale hardness of 7. This means it is fairly hard and thus durable in jewelry. And, as an added durability benefit, druzy crystals will not crumble or fall off in normal use.

Glittery eye appeal makes druzy perfect for pendants, focus stones, and earrings. They find less frequent use in bracelets and rings, as the crystals can be damaged from sharp knocks while wearing.

Forms

Druzy finds its most common presence in jewelry as an unpolished cabochon cut from and including the host rock, exposing its crystalline brilliance on one of the flat surfaces.

Once cut from the rock, druzy can be top drilled for stringing as flat beads. It can also be shaped into round beads with crystals glittering from inside the sphere. And finally, druzy cabochons can be polished to yield a smooth surface while retaining crystalline glitter from within.

For an amazing array of druzy's colors and forms, see Druzy Slideshow.

Sources:

http://www.semi-precious-stone.com
http://www.bernadine.com
http://www.heartofstonestudio.com
http://www.sorrelsky.com