Turquoise's cousin, Variscite

Here is a stone I hadn't encountered before. It's called Variscite, and it's a green stone that is closely related to Turquoise. Enjoy!

http://www.wire-sculpture.com/jewelr...utm_override=1

[Liet]

Its kinda like Turquoise, yes, but without copper.... the best part of it.

I"m a big fan of the color green, so this one caught my eye right away.

Maybe setting it in copper would be a way to add that energy to a jewelry piece with this stone in it.

Anyone working with the stone has to realize that, like turquoise, this is a SOFT stone, so it's got to be handled carefully to prevent wear-and-tear that will damage it. And this includes making decisions in advance on HOW to set the piece into a jewelry item that will withstand being worn as jewelry.

This is a reason why the vast majority of turquoise jewelry is stabilized in some way (such as via adding resins to the stone): because only a limited amount of turquoise stones are robust enough to be used as jewelry exactly as they are when they were taken from the ground. Most turquoise is too soft for that, so it gets a bit of human-induced "help" to make it last longer.