MINERALS BRNO
18.-19.11. 2023
International Sales Exhibition of Minerals, Fossils, Jewels and Natural Products
The colourful magic of the quartz - Accompanying exhibition to the autumn Minerals Brno 2016
Like in the previous years, during this year’s autumn Minerals Brno fair visitors can look forward to an additional accompanying exhibition. This time it will focus on a very broad and diverse group of quartz. Under this group, we can imagine not only the commonly known colour varieties of quartz, such as crystal, amethyst, rose quartz, citrine, and others, but also quartz with different ingrowths of other minerals, such as the generally known tiger eye or sagenit, but also various other mineralogical delights.
Apart from the varieties of quartz, this group also includes subgroups of chalcedony and opal. Among chalcedony varieties, the easiest that come to mind are different types of agate and carnelian, jasper and other multi-coloured gemstones. Opals have many colours or structurally different varieties; probably the most famous and most coveted is the precious opal, whose world-important site is located quite close to us, in eastern Slovakia near Dubník.
Besides many more-or-less known varieties of the rich quartz group, the exhibition will also display less known to rare species of high-temperature and high-pressure silicon oxides, such as tridymite, cristobalite or melanoflogite.
The exhibition will begin with examples explaining the different shape variety of quartz. Various crystallographic quartz forms will be on display together with typical growths and other attractions of this mineral. Attractive samples will certainly show different, often quite rare, ingrowths in quartz. It is quite difficult for many collectors to orientate in the quite complicated terminology of the quartz group, and various book titles often differ in terminology. Therefore, many visitors will certainly welcome a showcase with examples of varieties and subvarieties of quartz with their respective names.
From a regional point of view, focus will be on samples from the Czech regions and Slovakia, yet many typical overseas locations will not be omitted either. As it has become customary, there will be samples of exhibited minerals in their natural state, and the same raw materials after grinding. Many visitors will certainly be pleased to see typical examples of our precious stones from the quartz group, such as crystals of Jesenicko, Moravian Highlands, smoky quartz also from the Highlands, amethysts from Podkrkonoší and Třebíč regions, citrine from the Highlands, jaspers and agates from the Podkrkonoší and the Ore Mountains, opals from Křemže, Highlands, Doupovské hills, onyx from the Ore Mountains and Podkrkonoší and many other typical quartz materials. These domestic samples of cut stones from the quartz group will be accompanied by many typical foreign representatives across this vast group.
