What is Lepidolite?
Lepidolite is a rare lithium-bearing member of the mica group of minerals. It is usually found in colors of purple, lilac-gray, pink, or red. It can also be found in colorless or yellow forms on rare occasions.
It’s often too soft to be used in jewelry that receives a lot of wear such as rings or bracelets however it is sometimes impregnated with quartz which helps make it more durable. The mineral known as aventurine gets is a shiny appearance and color due to lepidolite within quartz.
When cut into cabochons lepidolite usually has a vitreous (glass-like) to pearly luster. The mica flakes often show up in cabochons to produce small flashes of light.
Our Small Purchase of This Beautiful Purple Stone
We are fortunate to have been able to purchase a small amount of some old stock Mexican Lepidolite cutting rough from Durango, Mexico.
It seemed to be nice solid material with a beautiful dark purple color inside and a white skin on the outside. It is harder and darker than much of the material we have seen in the past and believe it will help us to create some beautiful jewelry.
Once we cut a few slabs we found that it had quite a few healed fractures. Unfortunately, most of the fractures didn’t survive our flex test so it is unlikely that any of the white lines that we see in the slab will ever show up in our cabochons.
There was nice dark purple coloration on the inside and although there were quite a few fractures the slabs broke up into large enough pieces to make some nice cabochons.
We hope to cut enough cabochons to make a few nice pendants and pairs of earrings with the slabs we’ve cut so far.
