Description

Pecos Diamonds aren’t diamonds, despite the name. It’s one of the unfortunate things about letting people give stones names all willy-nilly, you end up with things like Herkimer “Diamonds”, Cape May “Diamonds”, and our subject at hand. All of these are quartz.

This variety of quartz is found in a wide variety of shapes, but most of them don’t really resemble the classic hexagonal, single-terminated shape that we generally associate with macrocrystalline silica. Instead, they show up in stranger geometric forms.

In addition to the rare crystallization forms, this strange quartz often takes on bold colors. The majority of these are red or yellow, but green, pink, and other shades can also be found. The sheer variety is a bit bewildering, especially if you’re only used to the “regular” types of quartz.

As a general rule, Pecos Diamonds are usually found as single crystals rather than clusters. That said, clusters do show up on occasion.