Amazonite

The green that everyone blamed on copper

Amazonite is a microcline, a potassium feldspar from the same family that makes up a good share of the world’s granite. Its color was long put down to copper, as turquoise is. Modern analysis settled it otherwise: traces of lead, combined with water caught in the crystal lattice, produce that blue-green.

The famous deposits are at Pikes Peak in Colorado, in the Russian Ilmen mountains and the Urals, in Madagascar, Ethiopia and Peru. The white veins running through it are albite, a sibling feldspar crystallizing in ribbons in the same rock. In the Colorado pegmatites it often grows alongside fine smoky quartz: soft green against dark brown, one of the better sights in mineralogy.

Amazonite, by tradition

Amazonite carries a soothing blue-green that calls to mind clear water, and tradition ties it to a gentle, settled way of expressing yourself. People credit it with helping you say things with clarity and tenderness, like words that find the right tone without harshness. It’s a stone many keep before a delicate conversation, to stand for the wish to speak while staying calm. Wear it as jewelry or hold it for a few moments before an exchange, and let its hue remind you that sincerity can be wrapping. Symbolically, it goes with calm communication and harmony between the heart and the throat.

Affirmation“I express myself with gentleness and clarity.”

Loved in Egypt, misnamed in the Amazon

Ancient Egypt was fond of it. Amazonite turns up in Tutankhamun’s jewelry, and amulets and scarabs cut from it accompanied the dead. Some passages of the Book of the Dead were even engraved on plaques of this stone.

The name, on the other hand, is a geographic mistake nobody bothered to correct. No deposit has ever been found in the Amazon basin. The green stones explorers brought back from the river in the eighteenth century, and which gave amazonite its name, were most likely nephrite. The name stuck, and so did the error.

How to use amazonite

Jewelry, meditation, before a conversation.

Cleansing

Smoke, sound; a quick rinse, then dry.

Charging

Moonlight; intention.

Common questions

Amazonite or turquoise: how do I tell them apart?

Turquoise is an opaque phosphate, often veined in black or brown. Amazonite is a feldspar, slightly translucent at the edges, veined in white, sometimes with a silky sheen. Turquoise is also softer and far more expensive: at a low price, what you are being offered is almost always amazonite.

Is amazonite fragile?

Moderately. Like all feldspars it has cleavage planes, and a sharp knock can split it cleanly. Store it apart from other jewelry, take it off for sport and cleaning, and keep household products and perfume away from it: they dull the polish that gives it its soft glow.

How should amazonite be cleaned and charged?

A brief rinse under clear water is enough, then dry it. Tradition charges it by moonlight. Avoid long spells in direct sun, which can wash out the color, and skip salt entirely.