Chatoyant Properties of Stones

Chatoyancy - what is it?  If a stone is chatoyant, it shows a band of bright reflected light caused by aligned inclusions in the stone.

Chatoyant means to shine like cats eyes.

Therefore, the stone has a changeable luster.

It means it gives off shimmering and the color can be changeable, too!

Got that?

One guy says:

Chatoyant stones are some of the most interesting and beautiful of the semi precious stones.  The group of chatoyant stones includes such well known stones as Tiger Eye, Marra Mamba, Pietersite, Binghamite, Silk Stone, and varieties of common semiprecious stones like Malachite, Jade, and Obsidian.  Chatoyant stones are those that can change in luster or color by orienting them differently to a light source.  It is also what causes the Tiger Eye property which is a reflected streak of light from a chatoyant stone that is cut and polished into a cabachon.

Some stones that are chatoyant include:

Seraphinite - terrific stone, gotta check it out!

Eudialyte (a garnet feldspar)

Astrophyllite

Labradorite (don't have any of this, either!)

Charoite (another stone I want to check out!)

Larvakite (Norwegian Moonstone) - also gotta check this out!

I'll add more Chatoyant stones to this list as I learn of them.

Perhaps it is this quality of bronzite that makes it wildly attractive to me.
If I check out some of these other stones, I may find them just as attractive.

However, the BRONZE color of Bronzite is what appeals to me.

I went through a phase where I was loving the color of Rose Gold.

I'm not a silver person, not a yellow gold person, enjoy Rose Gold and Copper, but what i really like is BRONZE! Not brass.

And bronze jewelry is not cheap.

But finding bronze colored beads and stones is cheaper, and I'll make my own jewelry!!

I also went through an opal phase.  I still like opalite and bought a few boulder opals from Mexico which are fascinating.  Wyoming has opals so I need to get down to the southwestern part of the state and go hunting them!

 

I also went through a phase where I was into stones that had wood-grain like appearances.  Above is a sedentary stone I found at Lake De Smet, Wyoming. It is soft and quite fascinating.

I'm also crazy about banded ironstone.  We have a lot of it where I go rock hunting.   What fascinates me about it is the heaviness, the ancient age of the stone, how it was formed and the wood grain - like layers and pattern in the stone.