All About Aventurine

The Stone Circle’s guide to understanding everything you need to know about Aventurine crystals.

Have you been shopping for crystals and come across a green, red, blue, or yellow tumbled stone called aventurine? Then this blog post is for you.

We all have to start somewhere with rock identification as baby rockhounds, but identifying minerals is also useful for buying new rocks for your crystal collection so that you don’t get fleeced.

This reasonably short guide to aventurine stone should help you with the basics.

Skip straight to shop for Aventurine with The Stone Circle.

What is Aventurine?

Aventurine is a type of quartzite, which will make sense only to those with an understanding of geology – so let me explain.

What is Quartzite?

Quartz is formed from pure silica. Quartzite is formed from silica which metamorphosed over time. So, quartzite might start out as sand, silt, or mud. These molecules clump together for safety. They then harden over great periods of time and often due to the elements. A river might compact clay; a strong wind might batter down sands – you get the idea.

A few lifetimes later, those sand, silt, or mud molecules which clung to one another have hardened into rock. Now. If you were to leave that rock for millions of years and if that rock had few impurities, the molecules of sand, or silt, or mud or clay would eventually become replaced by silica thanks to mineral rich soil and water around them. Maybe they are underground and the pressure helps too. However it happens, those little molecules become quartz.

Of course: they were not quartz to begin with so scientists can’t call them by the same name. They are not ‘true’ quartz… instead, they become quartzite.

When is Quartzite Aventurine?

Next, in order to become aventurine and not just ordinary quartzite, those bits of mud and silt and clay have to fuse with certain other minerals. The minerals in aventurine are described as platy, which just means they are plate-like in shape, although small. This gives them the ability to reflect light in a particular way which we call aventurescence.

As we know from every Scottish rock ever: it is the presence of iron oxides in our soil and groundwater which make up the reds, greens, yellows, oranges, and browns of the minerals we encounter in the UK from day-to-day. However, mica – another metamorphic rock – can also cause that affectation of colour. They can bring in greens, blacks, golds, and blues.

Aventurine can come in different colours. As mentioned above you can have green, blue, yellow, red, orange, brown & black. Although green aventurine is the most common. The green colour is a possible derivative of fuchsite with chrome in it, or chlorite, a green mica.

What is aventurine? It is a metamorphic form of quartz with specific mineral inclusions which give it the colour. Green indicates chrome, red, yellow, orange, and brown indicate hematite, magnetite, goethite, and other iron oxides. It might also contain mica. It has a nice shine which makes it good for cabochon making and for wearing as jewellery.

But mainly we sell rough aventurine or aventurine tumble stones.

How to Identify Aventurine?

An ordinary piece of quartzite will somewhat resemble quartz, but it will have a slightly grainier looking texture. There are other small differences too. It will not look as ‘pure’ as quartz does and it will have a slightly lower hardness, too.

Aventurine hardness is around 6.5-7 versus quartz’ 7. It has a specific gravity of 2.64-9. It has no streak because it is technically a quartz. The lustre is vitreous and waxy. All-in-all, it should appear as granular quartz often in unexpected quartz colours.

Why is Aventurine a Lucky Crystal?

There is a tendency to call any crystal which is green in colour a lucky crystal. However, the story of why aventurine is lucky does go beyond this. Some time during the 1700s a man working for the Murano glassworks dropped copper shavings into the glass he was working. The final product was what we know now as goldstone. Goldstone is a man made form of glass, rather than a rock.

Anyway, the Italians said it was very lucky and called it A Ventura, which translates to “by chance.” The name aventurine was born and then the crystal version (which was previously just quartzite) was given the title. Presumably because of the plate like flecks of mica which give the rock its colour.

Where do you find Aventurine?

India is the source of the masses of green aventurine easily considered the most popular colour of this stone. You can find orange, grey, and yellow aventurine in countries like Chile and on the continent in Spain. You can even find it in Russia. The orange variety of aventurine is often mistaken for sunstone, but sunstone has better transparency.

Ancient civilisations carved aventurine artefacts, using it as a tool or gemstone held in reverence to challenge others. The use of aventurine in ancient cultures stretches from Ethiopia to China and back again. Where do you find aventurine? Everywhere… but most of it is muddy brown.

Can you Rock Hunt for Aventurine in Scotland?

I would like to say no to this, but we have actually found two separate pieces of green aventurine in Scotland. They both came from down in Ayrshire. Keep your eyes peeled if you live out that way. We do have a TikTok video receipt of finding one of them.

The thing is that if it is in Ayrshire then it is elsewhere. We would bet money you can find it in Angus and Fife. We couldn’t find any entries on Mindat to back us up, though.

Technically you get quartzite everywhere. It is finding it in nice colours which is the tricky part.

What does Aventurine do in Crystal Healing?

Aventurine is also the birthstone for May and potentially for August. It relates to the heart chakra. It is soothing, calming, and brings good luck. Many would argue that it is, in fact, even luckier than jade.

If I were a witch (which of course I am not), I would use aventurine for any money spells I was working. If you are making little intention bottles, these are the stones you want in them.

Green aventurine is a stone of prosperity. You should buy it from us though. We have the luckiest ones.

Aventurine at The Stone Circle

At the moment we only have green aventurine, but we are expanding our collection every day.

You can shop for rough aventurine which we buy in batches to tumble on our website. You can also find second hand aventurine crystals there at cheap prices.

We would wish you good luck, but you won’t need it.

Shop Aventurine with The Stone Circle.