Interesting minerals of charoite rocks. Ekanit-Ekanayake

Ekanite is found in charoite rocks in the form of an accessory admixture of the smallest grains, but it causes an increased radioactivity of the ornamental stone, since it contains thorium as one of the mineral-forming elements - Ca2Th (Si8O20). The mineral was acquired in 1953 by F.L.D. Ekanayake is a gemologist from Colombo (Sri Lanka) as impact glass. However, the experienced eye of a person professionally dealing with minerals suspected that the declared name did not correspond to the real one. After he could not independently determine the mineral, he sent it for research to the laboratory of the Gemological Association of Great Britain. The first description of ekanite as a new unknown mineral was made by R.K. Mitchell (R.K. Mitchell) in 1953 and published in January 1954 in the Journal of Gemmology. The new mineral was approved in 1961. The name was given to him in honor of the attentive gemologist from Colombo. The color of the mineral can vary from colorless to dark red and from yellow-green to brown or gray, but most often it has a yellow-green color of varying degrees of hue and saturation. Despite the fact that the stone is radioactive and rarely found in any large grains, it is in demand among collectors-gemologists. The weight of the largest known faceted ecanite is 168 carats, and five years ago, in 2016, a star-shaped stone was found, from which seven cuts were made with a total weight of about 498 carats. But, as a rule, such large stones, all mined in Sri Lanka, are opaque and have dark colors with a predominance of gray or brown shades. Transparent gemstones are usually brown, comparable to that of tea, or green, similar in tint to the glass of Soviet-era beer bottles.

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