Actinolit

Description

  Actinolite is a semi-precious stone, consisting of many needle-shaped crystals and their radial impregnations. The stone's name consists of two Greek words: aktinos - ray, lithos - stone. Fibrous crud of Actinolite create an effect of cat's eye in quarts and adds to many transparent crystals a special fascination. The greenish color of Actinolite is caused by the presence in this mineral of iron compounds. Solid mass of fine-grained emerald-green Actinolite is sometimes called Emerald or Emerald spar.
On the territory of East Africa you can often find transparent brown and green crystals that could be facetted.
Some forms of actinolite are used as gemstones. One is nephrite, one of the two types of jade. Another gem variety is the chatoyant form known as cat's-eye actinolite. This stone is translucent to opaque, and green to yellowish green color. This variety has had the misnomer jade cat's-eye.
Its green color reflects a high iron content-the white variety without iron is called tremolite.