Saturday, December 30, 2006

Turquoise (Part 13)Nevada.--Nevada has been a major producer of turquoise


Turquoise (Part 13)
Nevada.--Nevada has been a major producer of turquoise since the 1930's, and until the early 1980's, the State was the largest producer in the United States. It is estimated that over the years, 75 to 100 different mines/prospects produced sizable quantities of turquoise. Production varied from a few thousand dollars worth of material at some of the properties to more than a million dollars at others. To date, total production of rough turquoise is estimated to be in the range of $40 to $50 million.

Turquoise from Nevada comes in various shades of blue, blue-green, green-blue, and green. Some of the turquoise may contain iron, if it does, its color is pale green to yellow-green to yellow. The material can be solid colored or spider webbed with either brown or black webbing; the spider webbing may occur in any of the different colors or shades. Some of the blue material is represented as the finest pure-blue turquoise produced. It can occur in thin veins or seams or as nodules, with single nodules reported as large as 150 pounds. The quality varies from hard solid material that takes a good polish, to soft porous material that can only be use as feed stock for treatment, enhancement, or stabilization processes.

Associated with some of the turquoise deposits are........

In our next issue we will learn about Turquuoise, please visit our Beading Newsletter Archives section located at the left hand side of our homepage or simply click here.

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