Apatite Necklace, Source Pixabay
Apatite is
"a widely occurring pale green to purple mineral, consisting of calcium phosphate with some fluorine, chlorine, and other elements. It is used in the manufacture of fertilizers".
Source Wikipedia
That's the science definition but for me Apatite is one of the most beautiful of stones!! Often many mistake it for Aquamarine, Blue Topaz or even Amazonite, but unlike them, Apatite comes in a broader color spectrum offering more variety when it comes to custom made jewelry!
Some sites even mentioned pink tones, but I'm thinking it's probably just a variation of the purple.
Apatite beads.
Raw Apatite.
The pics above are the forms of Apatite I have in my supplies. What I love is how the color changes with different light. In one pic the Apatite beads look turquoise in color, and then in another they look almost silver!
The same thing happens with the raw chunk of Apatite I have. In daylight it looks turquoise blue, and with a flash, it changes to dark royal blue and even has touches of purple!! (I've been debating whether to keep this chunk for my personal collection, or break it up for use in jewelry making. I am currently leaning towards keeping!)
According to the mineral website mindat.org,
"Apatite" is a field term for unidentified calcium phosphate members of the apatite group. Most "apatite" is fluorapatite, whereas hydroxylapatite is much less common and chlorapatite is very rare.
"Apatite" crystals are short to long hexagonal prisms [0001], with {1010} and {1011} dominant; also thick tabular {0001}, frequently in the crystals of hydrothermal origin in pegmatites and veins, with {1010}, relatively large {0001}, and often also {1011} or low pyramids. Massive, coarse granular to compact. Globular or reniform at times with a sub-fibrous, scaly, or imperfectly columnar structure or as fibrous crusts; stalactitic; earthy; oolitic. May be rock-forming in beds of great extent; as nodular concretions in clays and shales; conglomeritic.
Apatite may be confused with beryl, milarite or phenakite.
I have even known people to confuse the stone with Amazonite. But unlike Amazonite, Apatite is more transparent in color. Not milky.
Green Apatite, source crystalvault.com.
Beautiful faceted Apatite in various shades. Source, geology.com.
Raw purple Apatite, courtesy minerals.net.
Oh how I would love to get my hands on some purple Apatite! So far I've had no luck finding any, which tells me it might be pretty rare and pricey too! I would have a very hard time letting it go, too!!
I got curious about the rarer forms of Apatite and wanted to know more. I found hydroxylapatite to be pretty disappointing as it, to me, looks alot like selenite or white howlite in it's raw form. Boring!. I like color!!
However, it apparently plays another important role.
According to mindat.org
"Hydroxylapatite is a very important biomineral: Carbonated calcium-deficient hydroxylapatite is the main mineral of which dental enamel and dentin are composed."
So while not the prettiest to look at, it's important for tooth care!
One of the prettier pieces of Hydroxylapatite I found a picture of, courtesy rruff.info.
Chlorapatite, the rarest form, isn't much more exciting. It's color range is kind of a white and gray with tinges of green. 😕. Interest in this mineral appears to be in medical applications as well, according to onlinelibrary.wiley.com.
All forms of Apatite are found to be very environmentally friendly too!!
Source Wikipedia and onlinelibrary.wiley.com
The environmentally friendly aspect of Apatite makes it even more appealing, to me!! More points in it's favor!!😍