FreeShip- Quartz, Rose, 7 to 20 mm, Unpolished- (Prompt rebate on orders with 3 or more FreeShip items!)

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This is one of my favorites. I think it could be a precious stone if not for the fact that it's non-rare. Such a beautiful, delicate shade of pink. Truth be told, I like the unpolished rose quartz better than the polished because it's degree of translucency and color makes it seem to glow. Note that the smaller the pieces, the lighter the color will be.

We have varieties of quartz in several sizes, from 1.5 to 75 mm (~3") chunks. It can be used for jewelry when drilled, or for various mineral resin embedments, craft and orgonic alike. Minerals are also a subject for the metaphysician (a student of metaphysics, and thus of the metaphysical properties of crystals and minerals, the older term is a metaphysicist; for this and other subjects, teachers are students also).

A note on the size of our rock and mineral pieces: Size is relative to what we have in our shop. Crushed rocks vary greatly in size. To get a feel for how large a particular type is, look at the picture enlargement (click the Plus in the upper right side of the picture on the product page). Then use the ruler at the bottom of the picture to compare the rocks with the numbers on the ruler (in inches) with the specimens in the poly bags to get an idea of the sizes represented in the poly bags.

Quartz is a relatively hard mineral (mohs 7) but there are plenty of minerals of the same or greater hardness. When pure it is transparent. Pure quartz is silica with a formula of SiO2, a molecule made of silicon and oxygen. Silica and quartz are names for the same mineral.
In our store we carry varieties of quartz minerals in a many particle sizes, from sub microscopic particles to chunks (mineral specimens of amethyst or rose quartz, etc), fused silica, fumed silica, silica sand, ground crystalline silica powder for use in ceramics and fumed silica. Fused silica is a very high purity quartz which has been melted and further purified, then ground up into various particle sizes. It is very transparent. It's used as a refractory material, in electronics, and also as a quartz for transparent lens or windows in high pressure and high temperature applications by re-melting, ground, and polished. It can be used as a filler in resins or refractory mortars or concretes when combined with refractory cement like Secar. Fumed silica is a exceedingly small particle size amorphous quartz. Fumed silica is most often used for its thixotropic imparting properties when added to resins such as epoxy or polyester (it makes a gel which flows when agitated). Small amounts added to a liquid will greatly increase viscosity.

Additional info on quartz in general:
There are polymorphs (having the same chemical formula but a different crystal structure) of quartz including alpha and beta quartz, tridymite, moganite, cristobalite, coesite, and stishovite.
The most important difference in types of crystal development are quartz varieties which are macrocrystalline (crystals able to be easily seen), those that are not able to be seen except with a microscope, and those that can't be seen even with a microscope. Macrocrystalline quartz usually forms hexagonal pyramids or prisms. Quartz is present in all 3 major rock groups: igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary. It's a main constituent in silica-feldspar rocks like granite, diorites, and rhyolites. It's resistant to weathering and it concentrates in sandstones (sedimentary). Secondary quartz (that which is altered by hydrothermal forces of heat and pressure deep in the crust of the earth) makes a cement which binds particles in sandstone together.

An interesting property of quartz is the generation of an electric charge when it's pressed by mechanical force. A mineral that does so is said to be piezoelectric. The effect has many uses. Some too complex to write here. A classic one that I remember learning about when I was a kid was the quartz oscillator when I was into building "Heathkit" things such as radios and amplifiers. There was a discreet piece made of crystal that would vibrate at a fixed frequency when electric current was applied to it. Piezoelectricity is made from a quartz crystal that uses a combination of both direct and converse piezoelectricity to produce a regularly timed series of electrical signals that are used to mark time. Quartz crystal (like any elastic material) has a precisely repeatable natural frequency (caused by its shape and size) at which it oscillates, and this is used to stabilizes the frequency of a voltage applied to the crystal. The same principle is used in computers where it creates a clock pulse.

Quartz is very common and easily found. Only feldspar is more abundant than quartz in the crust of the planet. Since ancient times various types of quartz have been used for jewelry and other forms of adornment. Evidence of quartz mining since paleolithic times has been found. The number of varieties of quartz is large. The varieties are all dependent on impurities in the quartz (including water) or an unusual crystal structure (small crystal microcrystalline or smaller crystal cryptocrystalline). Impurities such as potassium, lithium, sodium, and titanium cause color changing in quartz. The main varieties are chosen on the basis of semi-precious stones. Amethyst is the most valuable. Here are most of them (they are almost all just different colors of quartz):

Amethyst
Citrine
Rose Quartz
Smoky Quartz
Blue Quartz
Milky Quartz
Rock Crystal Quartz
Ametrine
Dumortierite Quartz
Prasiolite
Rutilated Quartz
Chalcedony Cryptocrystalline Types:
Agate
Onyx
Jasper
Carnelian
Heliotrope &
Bloodstone
Tiger's Eye
Moss Agate
Carnelian
Chrysoprase

Note that colored opal is actually quartz, SiO2, but it has water in its molecular structure which interferes with transparency and crystallinity yielding beautiful colors which change as the angle of view changes. But it is weaker than regular quartz and can be prone to fracture if struck.
Another type of "so called" opal, Girasol Opal, does not have the dazzling colors but looks more like transparent or translucent quartz. It has a much lower percentage of water in its structure and thus looks more like rock crystal quartz. Lower amounts of water will give more transparency and higher amounts will give more cloudiness or milkiness depending on it's clarity you may be able to see "phantom" images inside the stone. It can be named Girasol Opal, Girasol Quartz Crystal, or just "Milky Quartz" in order of increasing water percentage. But be aware not all "Milky Quartz" is Girasol Quartz. There is a major form of stone related to quartz called quartzite, which is composed of grains of quartz that may be colored or transparent, that have been cemented back together by being deposited deep in the crust of earth and subjected to high temperatures and pressures. If broken open the fracture can look "grainy". It can look cloudy white but usually is a much more opaque quartz than the Girasol variety.
http://www.myrockhound.com/individualstonesal/girasolopal.html
"Girasol Opal is the name given to clear to milky star quartz mined in Madagascar. This stone is associated with the throat chakra and crown chakras. It is used to stimulate the mystical arts, psychic developments, and is used in journeying, psychic cloaking, and personal, creative, or imaginative traits."

Ground up quartz has many uses including:
food additive, viscosity control, anti-foaming agent, plastics filler, agriculture, paving, brick and tile, concrete, mortar, cleansers, foundry casting, ceramics and pottery, paint, glass, soaps, fiber glass, electronics, plaster, sandblasting, industrial effluent filtration, drinking water filtration, hazardous waste control, orgonite, and those not mentioned above (!)
(Above from DigitalFire and others.)
For those interested in orgonite, quartz is one of the primary and necessary materials. Here's a quote from an internet source:
Quartz "is considered a 'master healer.' It's said to amplify energy by absorbing, storing, releasing, and regulating it. It's also said to aid concentration and memory. Physically, clear crystals are claimed to help stimulate the immune system and balance out your entire body."

Here is a section on quartz or silica as it relates to the field of ceramics. Silica is a very important component of clay.
Quartz has two main forms, alpha and beta quartz. Alpha quartz is the normal type found as a solid mineral. Beta quartz is a high temperature form. Both are chiral (mirror images and non-mirror images that cannot be superimposed together into the same image). If you heat quartz to 1063 degrees F, it becomes beta quartz. The transformation from alpha to beta when heated and the beta to alpha when cooled is called quartz inversion.
Quartz inversion occurs when firing clay in a kiln. The change from alpha quartz to beta quartz is fairly sudden in the firing cycle, happening at 573 C (1063 F). When the inversion occurs there is a significant change in volume (expansion) when the temperature is rising. When falling the inversion reverses and it changes in volume in the opposite direction (shrinkage). It is usually when coming down from high temps through quartz inversion that causes destruction in the form of cracking. From DigitalFire: "Quartz inversion becomes the greatest concern when there are sufficient large particles of free quartz available and heat is not evenly distributed through a piece of ware in the kiln. When this happens parts of it are hotter or colder (because of differences in thickness, rapid temperature rise or fall, dampening against the kiln shelves, uneven exposure to draft or radiant heat, remnants of variations from earlier parts of the firing). Only the quartz particles in the part of the ware within the critical temperature window are changing in volume. Thus, to the degree to which a piece is unevenly heated, the expansion/contraction moves through it as a wave. Another major determiner of whether ware cracks as it passes through quartz-inversion temperature window is the density and homogeneity of the matrix in which the quartz particles exist and the degree to which they are bonded to the surrounding matrix. During kiln heat-up the particles generally exist in a matrix having plenty of pore space to absorb the change (unless the piece has previously been fired to a high density). But on cool-down the fired ceramic around each quartz particle is much less capable of absorbing its volume change, especially if the particle is of significant size and the temperature drops rapidly through critical range. The problem is doubly serious when ware is re-fired since the ware further densifies and the quartz particles have had opportunity to bond more into the surrounding matrix."