Crystals for Leo

The best crystals for Leo are Amber, Aragonite and Astrophyllite, the first of 29 stones tradition ties to the sign. Each entry names the mineral it actually is, the physical test that separates a real one from a treated lookalike, and what the stone means for a Leo chart.

• Amber2-2.5 Mohs · organic · solar-plexus, sacralTree resin from Eocene forests, polymerised over 30 to 90 million years, and the only gem material that regularly contains a dead animal. T…
• Aragonite3.5-4 Mohs · carbonate · root, sacral, solar-plexusCalcium carbonate crystallised in the orthorhombic system instead of the trigonal one, which is the only difference between it and calcite …
• Astrophyllite3-4 Mohs · silicate · crown, third-eye, solar-plexusGreek for 'star leaf', and correctly so: a rare titanium silicate that grows in bronze blades radiating from a point, found in alkaline ign…
• Black Onyx6.5-7 Mohs · chalcedony · rootGrey agate boiled in sugar and acid until it turns black, a treatment Pliny already knew about, which makes it one of the oldest continuous…
• Bumblebee Jasper3-5 Mohs · rock (aggregate) · solar-plexus, sacralNot a jasper at all: banded calcite and anhydrite laced with native sulfur and arsenic sulfides, deposited in a fumarole near Papandayan vo…
• Calcite (Coloured Varieties)3 Mohs · carbonate · sacral, solar-plexus, heartThe most abundant carbonate on earth in its decorative dress, orange and honey from Mexico, mint green from Pakistan, blue from Madagascar,…
• Carnelian6.5-7 Mohs · chalcedony · sacral, rootIron-stained chalcedony the colour of a low fire, and one of the oldest worked gemstones on record, Egyptian, Roman and Islamic carvers all…
• Cherry Quartz5-6 Mohs · man-made · heart, sacralColoured glass, marbled with white and cut into points and spheres, sold with a fruit name and a quartz claim. There is no natural material…
• Citrine (Heat-Treated Amethyst)7 Mohs · quartz · solar-plexus, sacralAmethyst that has been through a furnace and come out the colour of cheap brandy. Nothing dishonest has happened to the mineral, it is stil…
• Citrine (Natural)7 Mohs · quartz · solar-plexus, sacralActual citrine is a quiet, weak-tea yellow and it is genuinely uncommon, most of what the trade calls citrine has been in an oven. The natu…
• Clear Quartz7 Mohs · quartz · crown, third-eyeThe default specimen of the entire trade, silicon dioxide, geometrically perfect, and so common it is nearly worthless by weight. Its appea…
• Crazy Lace Agate6.5-7 Mohs · chalcedony · solar-plexus, sacralChihuahuan agate that formed in a rock that kept breaking and re-healing, producing banding with no discipline whatsoever. Dealers call it …
• Fire Agate6.5-7 Mohs · chalcedony · root, sacralChalcedony that grew in stacked layers alternating with films of iron oxide only nanometres thick, so light interferes with itself and the …
• Goldstone5-6 Mohs · man-made · sacral, solar-plexusSeventeenth-century Venetian glass in which metallic copper is crystallised out of the melt under controlled oxygen starvation, a genuinely…
• Kunzite6.5-7 Mohs · silicate · heartPink spodumene, identified in 1902 and named for Tiffany's gemmologist George Frederick Kunz, who found it in the pegmatites of San Diego C…
• Labradorite6-6.5 Mohs · feldspar · third-eye, throat, crownA grey plagioclase feldspar whose internal layering is spaced at exactly the wavelength of visible light, so it throws aurora colours from …
• Larimar4.5-5 Mohs · silicate · throat, heartBlue pectolite from a single volcanic outcrop in Barahona Province, Dominican Republic, one mountainside, one country, no substitutes. It w…
• Leopardskin Jasper6.5-7 Mohs · rock (aggregate) · root, sacralAnother trade name that lies: this is orbicular rhyolite from Chihuahua, a volcanic rock in which silica crystallised into spheres as the m…
• Peridot6.5-7 Mohs · silicate · heart, solar-plexusOlivine from the earth's mantle, brought up in basalt, and occasionally arriving from space inside pallasite meteorites. The Egyptians mine…
• Pietersite6.5-7 Mohs · quartz · third-eye, solar-plexusTiger's eye that was shattered by tectonics and healed back together at every angle at once, so the light in it looks like weather. Found i…
• Pyrite6-6.5 Mohs · sulfide · solar-plexus, rootIron sulfide that grows in perfect cubes with striated faces, and has been fooling prospectors so reliably that its nickname is older than …
• Rhodochrosite3.5-4 Mohs · carbonate · heart, solar-plexusManganese carbonate, banded pink and white where it grew as stalactites in old Inca silver workings at Capillitas in Argentina, and blood-r…
• Ruby in Zoisite6-9 Mohs · rock (aggregate) · heart, rootRuby crystals grown inside green zoisite, found in 1949 in the Longido district of Tanzania and named anyolite from the Maasai word for gre…
• Rutilated Quartz7 Mohs · quartz · solar-plexus, crownQuartz that trapped needles of titanium dioxide as it grew, producing what looks like gold wire frozen mid-flight. Renaissance Europeans ca…
• Sardonyx6.5-7 Mohs · chalcedony · root, sacralStraight-layered agate in red-brown and white, and the standard material for Roman cameos and signet stones because the layers can be under…
• Spectrolite6-6.5 Mohs · feldspar · third-eye, crownLabradorite that shows the whole spectrum rather than just the blue end, found in quantity at Ylämaa in south-eastern Finland after quarryi…
• Strawberry Quartz (Glass)5-6 Mohs · man-made · heartTwo entirely different things share this name: a scarce natural quartz with red iron-oxide platelets, and an enormous volume of manufacture…
• Sunstone6-6.5 Mohs · feldspar · sacral, solar-plexusFeldspar that trapped sheets of copper or hematite platelets while crystallising, so it flashes metallic orange when the light finds the ri…
• Tiger's Eye6.5-7 Mohs · quartz · solar-plexus, rootBlue asbestos fibres replaced molecule by molecule with silica, keeping the fibrous alignment and gaining a hard glassy body, the sheen is …

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