By Chisom Ibemere
Aventurine is a transparent which has a platy mineral inclusions that brings about its glistening effects called aventurescence. It is a form of quartz which is mostly green in colour but may have orange, brown, blue, grey or blue colours. As a rock, it has a specific gravity of 2.64-2.69 with a hardness of 6.5.
The word aventurine is gotten from the Italian “a ventura” which means “by chance.” This is an allusion to the lucky discovery of aventurine glass in the 18th century. It was told that this kind of glass was originally made accidentally at Murano by a workman, who allowed some copper filings fall into the molten “metal,” whence the product was called avventurino.
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Most of the green and blue-green aventurine came from India (especially in the vicinity of Mysore and Chennai) where it is employed by prolific artisans. The materials like Creamy white, gray and orange is seen in Chile, Spain and Russia. Most of the material is carved into beads and figurines with only the finer specimen produced into cabochons, and jewellery.
Aventurine is applied in so many ways which may include landscape stone, building stone, aquaria, monuments, and jewelry.
Other colours of Aventurine are rare as gemstones because they do not often occur in gem-quality. Those with hematite inclusions are usually red-brown or gold-brown in colours and those included with goethite usually have greenish brown. Aventurine typically occurs as slightly banded gemstone with light and dark colour zones.
