Gemmological Characteristic of Jinshifeng Stone(Dickite) from Shoushan

As an excavated stone(dickite) from Shoushan, Jinshifeng stone catches many attentions since its similarities with Tianhuang in quality and formed environment. The appearance characteristics, spectroscopic characteristics, mineral components, and micro-morphological characteristics of the stone have been investigated using gemmological microscope, X-ray diffraction spectrometer (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR), Raman spectrometer (Raman), and scanning electron microscope (SEM) with its energy dispersive spectrometers (EDS). The results show that in the terms of appearance characteristics, Jinshifeng stone has black weathered surface with many relatively big and deep pits. Golden dots could be found in both surface and interior, and the stone shows subangular appearance. The interior of the stone is rich in colour, commonly yellow, red, and white, and the colour has sharp boundary. In the terms of mineral components, disordered dickite is the main mineral component of Jinshifeng stone, and there are some impurity minerals existing on the weathered surface, such as amorphous carbon, pyrite, calcite, dolomite, lazurite, hematite, halite, and quartz. The interior also has complicated impurity mineral components including pyrophyllite, hematite, anatase, svanbergite and zircon. These findings provide a solid evidence base for the scientific species identification of Jinshifeng stone combining the appearance characteristics and mineral components characteristics.