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What Are The Characteristics of Citrine?

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Citrine is one of the most valuable forms of quartz. The most common use is as a gem by jewelers but is also valuable to mineral collectors. It has also substituted for the more expensive gem Topaz.

Citrine is transparent to translucent and yellow to gold-brown in color with a vitreous luster. The name citrine is derived from the old French word for lemon, citrin. Its color comes from the presence of Iron impurities within the crystal. The darker colored Citrine crystals, named Madeira for their color’s resemblance to Madeira wines, are generally more valuable. Natural citrine is rare and most natural occurs when Amethyst formations are near natural heat sources in the Earth’s crust. Citrine becomes dark brown when exposed to x-rays and white when heated.

Citrine crystals occur in nature in protruding clusters of pyramids on a geode base. They are Trigonal, a less symmetrical subset of the Hexagonal system with four crystallographic axes, three in the same plane intersecting at 60 degree angles and the fourth, shorter or longer axis, intersecting the plane of the other three at an angle of 90 degrees. The typical cutting styles for Citrine include, faceted, cabochons, beads and carvings.

Citrine is one of the most affordable gemstones, thanks to the durability and availability of this golden quartz. Named from the French name for lemon, citron, many citrines have a juicy lemon color.

Citrine includes yellow to gold to orange brown shades of transparent quartz. Sunny and affordable, citrine can brighten almost any jewelry style, blending especially well with the yellow gleam of polished gold.

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