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Quartz is the most common mineral on the planets surface and can be found nearly everywhere. Many mineral collections begin with these and the family of quartz contains many interesting things such as petrified woods, Thunder Eggs, Jaspers, chalcedony, flint, chert, and many more.
Mohs hardness: 7
Common uses today - Quartz which is silica is used heavily in the asphalt/paving industry as well as concrete, gravel/sand. Also used in the optics fields and glass/window production.
Colorado Quartz - pictures in the CP forums.
From Wikipedia - Quartz
"Quartz is the most abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust (although feldspar is more common in the world as a whole).
Pure quartz is colorless or white; colored varieties include rose quartz, amethyst, smoky quartz, milky quartz, and others.
The most important distinction between types of quartz is that of macrocrystalline (individual crystals visible to the unaided eye) and the microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline varieties (aggregates of crystals visible only under high magnification). Chalcedony is a generic term for cryptocrystalline quartz. The cryptocrystalline varieties are either translucent or mostly opaque, while the transparent varieties tend to be macrocrystalline.
Although many of the varietal names historically arose from the color of the mineral, current scientific naming schemes refer primarily to the microstructure of the mineral. Color is a secondary identifier for the cryptocrystalline minerals, although it is a primary identifier for the macrocrystalline varieties. This does not always hold true.
Quartz occurs in hydrothermal veins and pegmatites. Well-formed crystals may reach several meters in length and weigh hundreds of kilograms.
Quartz is a common constituent of granite, sandstone, limestone, and many other igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks."
Check out the Mindat.org database for detailed information about Quartz.
