Color Challenge - Sunday Purple - Amethyst Geode

Hi Steem friends,

For my entry into today's colorchallenge, I'm sharing a photo of a chunk of amethyst that I have as a decoration. I received this piece of amethyst a few years ago as a gift from my parents. I've always really enjoyed minerals and gemstones - it's so fascinating to me that these types of beautiful items can form naturally in the ground below us!

After doing a bit of research, I guess there's still quite a bit of mystery surrounding the exact process by which amethyst - or any geode - forms. The main accepted theory seems to be centered around the presence of gas cavities within lava. These cavities then fill up with silica, and if iron is present, it produces the beautiful purple colouration of the amethyst. So this little piece that I have would have come from a full sphere that was broken apart, with the purple crystals on the interior and the brown base along the outside.

I'd imagine that it will be pretty hard for us to ever verify how true this theory is since it takes so long for these to form, but regardless of exactly what happens, it still leaves us with a beautiful end-product!