Gemmological Characteristic of Quartz Jade from Luonan, Shanxi Province

Recently, a new kind of quartz jade has been discovered in Luonan, Shanxi Province. The jade has purple and green tone, especially green wrapped in red, which is the firstly discovered in the quartz jade. In this paper, the mineral components, microstructure, spectroscopy, micro-area chemical composition characteristics of quartz jade from Luonan, were studied through testing methods like polarizing microscope, Fourier transform infrared spectrometer, scanning electron microscope, petrochemical analysis and conventional gemmological tests. The regular inspection result shows that this quartz jade has cryptocrystalline texture and dense massive structure, and silicon dioxide is main existing as α-SiO₂, and the shape of quartz is granular, as a jade which belongs to chalcedony. The quartz jade has vitreous luster, with Moths hardness 6.5-7.0, density 2.649-2.788 g/cm³, refractive index 1.52-1.55.