Study on Clarity of Shoushan Stone

The Shoushan stone is one of the famous craft carving stones in China and the clarity is one of the decisive factors in the value appraise.The clarity of Shoushan stone of the different varieties and from the differfent areas is not the same,which is one of the important basis for identifying the varieties and value of Shoushan stone.By using XRD,IR and SEM,the results indicate that the samples with high transparency are of high degree of order,well-crystallized minerals and as pseudo-hexagonal slaty crystals.On the contrary,opaque samples are with low degree of order and with much thinner and smaller crystal particles.Each variety of Shoushan stone samples has its distinguished texture feature,just as the "peanut pastry" of Shanbo stone,transparent band or "silk" part of Dashan stone and transparent band of Huakeng stone,which have the same mineral constituent with that of the substrate,but the different degree of order,the content of trace elements and crystal morphology.