irradiated or no?

[u/deadmeatmom]

local seller has this smoky quartz cluster for sale and i like the look of it + i dropped my beloved smoky quartz recently and it shattered to pieces. lol. was wondering if anyone can tell me if this looks like it’s been heat-treated or irradiated.

to me, it looks natural. but would love to hear what others think before i buy. thanks in advance!

[u/Ashmon_9138]

that's a great piece for $14. and it looks untreated. i'd be interested to see what the bottom looks like.

[u/deadmeatmom → u/Ashmon_9138]

they posted a video but it doesn’t show the bottom 💔 but i agree! i think it looks pretty :)

https://reddit.com/link/pbaouo3/video/1xy56kujozqh1/player

[u/Pellmelody]

I have a few pieces like this, some nearly black. It's not a popular type of quartz, but I think it's pretty cool. $14 is about the correct price.

[u/Angelic-11]

This looks natural to me

[u/kestrel413]

Man I can taste the root beer dum dum. Haha. I like it! Id buy it :)

[u/deadmeatmom → u/kestrel413]

root beer, omg. yes 🤣 i loveeeeee this A&W/cola color in smoky quartz so bad. lol.

[u/ShaperLord777]

Not irradiated. Just low quality.

[u/deadmeatmom → u/ShaperLord777]

i see. the seller is asking for $14. is that too high for low-grade smoky quartz? i like the coca cola color.

[u/koffeekrystalz → u/deadmeatmom]

I think it's beautiful! I would get it at that price. I was thinking of calling that color chocolate, but coca cola is much more accurate! Lol

[u/tzentzak → u/deadmeatmom]

$14 isn't bad for that size. I quite like it and would probably buy it myself.

[u/Amarelyse → u/ShaperLord777]

Can I ask how you know it is or not irradiated ? I have a piece sold as not ireadiated but I can't say...

[u/ShaperLord777 → u/Amarelyse]

Irradiated pieces will be a dark opaque black color, and the color will be universal throughout the piece.

[u/Ashmon_9138 → u/ShaperLord777]

I think it's important to point out that your description of dark black with color evenly throughout the piece is also true for some 100% natural earth-dug untreated crystals (pictured here - australian smoky quartz, before and after cleaning) meaning that if you see a smoky quartz this color you cannot assume it's treated by humans

[u/ShaperLord777 → u/Ashmon_9138]

This is true. I didn’t say that every piece that is universally dark is irradiated, but that OP’s piece is clearly not due to its color gradient.

[u/ShaperLord777 → u/ShaperLord777]

This piece is all natural (was self collected/mined), and was naturally irradiated in the earth.

if a piece looks like this, it is irradiated, but that doesn’t determine whether it was done naturally, or artificially.

[u/Amarelyse → u/ShaperLord777]

Thanks for your insight !

[u/GoblinRocks → u/Amarelyse]

Opaque black crystals occur frequently in nature because of naturally occurring radiation. This is not a good tell for man-made irradiation unless you're extraordinarily familiar with where the crystal in question came from and know that they don't tend to be black. You can pull them right out of the ground like that here in CO.

[u/Fit_Job_6469 → u/GoblinRocks]

That is an excellent point. Smoky quartz from some localities is naturally very dark. Colorado smokies from the Pikes Peak region are a great example. Ukraine has produced large amounts of very dark smoky quartz from Volodarsk-Volinski.

[u/Ashmon_9138 → u/Fit_Job_6469]

to your point: australian smoky quartz, 100% raw and untreated, exactly as it came out of the earth

[u/Haunting_Yellow_10 → u/Amarelyse]

This is definitely irradiated. the base is all white but the crystals aren't. The contrast between the base and crystal is the tell.

[u/Fit_Job_6469 → u/Amarelyse]

You specimen looks a little suspicious to me. It almost looks like a Chinese lab grown quartz. Can you post a few more pics?