Giant Amethysts from my Travels

This week’s theme from Sunday Stills is #Amethyst and I took the challenge quite literally, reminded of the giants I’ve seen in my travels.

I saw two of the largest Amethyst geodes at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. They were formed more than 135 million years ago in Uruguay. The first one below is 9 feet tall, the second 12 feet tall.

I saw the Grape Jelly Amethyst Geode at the Perot Science Museum in Dallas (its first exhibit, the museum was built around it.) It’s five feet tall and behind glass, and you can open and close it by turning the wheel.

Also at the Perot Museum, was a heart shaped Amethyst, 3 feet across. This beautiful geode was in the lobby, not behind glass.

I found another approachable Amethyst at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington DC.

Amethyst is a variety of Quartz, a hard mineral composed of silica, found widely in the earth’s crust. Not all Amethysts are geodes. The Berns Quartz from Arkansas, at 7 feet tall is the largest Quartz crystal in the world, displayed in a museum, at the Smithsonian.

Pure Quartz is colorless, like ice, but various impurities cause it to come in all colors of the rainbow. I love the purple impurity!