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moonstone
Sign in to saveorthoclase variety moonstone also known as white labradorite from feldspar with schiller
Key facts
- Category
- Tectosilicate minerals
- Group
- Feldspar group
- Series
- Alkali feldspar series
- Formula
- (Na,K)AlSi 3 O 8
- Ima status
- Variety of orthoclase
- Crystal system
- Monoclinic
- Color
- Various, including blue, gray, white, pink, peach , green, and brown, as well as colorless
- Cleavage
- Perfect
- Fracture
- Uneven to conchoidal
- Mohs scale hardness
- 6.0–6.5
- Luster
- Vitreous, opalescent
- Streak
- White
- Specific gravity
- 2.54–2.66
- Optical properties
- For orthoclase and sanidine , biaxial (–); for oligoclase , biaxial +/–
- Refractive index
- 1.518–1.547
- Birefringence
- 0.005–0.01
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- mineral variety
- Subclass of
- feldspar
- Named after
- Moon
- Image
- MoonstoneGem.jpg
Show 3 more facts
- Commons category
- Moonstone
- streak color
- white
- described by source
- Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
~4 min read
Encyclopedic overview
A small sample of rough moonstone
Moonstone is a sodium potassium aluminium silicate ((Na,K)AlSi3O8) of the feldspar group that displays a pearly and opalescent schiller. An alternative name for moonstone is hecatolite (from goddess Hecate).
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “moonstone” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.