Pure quartz, or “rock crystal” from Brazil. Source: Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0 Pick up a rock almost anywhere on Earth and chances are pretty good that there’s at least some quartz in it.

Evidence for the use of rock crystal - a rare type of perfectly transparent quartz which forms in large hexagonal gems - has occasionally been found at prehistoric sites in the British Isles, but ...

Unlike mineral particles found in clouds on Earth, the quartz crystals detected in the clouds of WASP-17 b are not swept up from a rocky surface. Instead, they originate in the atmosphere itself.

More than one of our readers suggested we highlight this beautifully-shot process documentary about the laborious and precise manufacturing of piezoelectric quartz crystals in the early 1940s.

Geodes, for instance, are created when mineral-rich water seeps into hollow spaces within rock formations and slowly evaporates, leaving behind dazzling crystals like quartz and amethyst.

They submerged quartz crystals in a gold-rich fluid and applied ... with quartz veins found in tectonically active areas or even rocks shattered by earthquakes. “In essence, the quartz acts ...