Chrysoberyl is an extremely hard crystal that belongs to the orthorhombic family. It has various shades of green, yellow, brownish and change color under incandescent light. It can be found in Australia, Africa, and Russia where the Alexandrite, a chrysoberyl crystal green by day – red by night – was named after the Czar Alexander II.
02-18. Chrysoberyl #7.
Chrysoberyl as fruits on a vine! So it looks like from the database resource of S. Weber, M. Grodzicki, W. Lottermoser, G. Redhammer, G. Tippelt, J. Ponahlo & G. Amthauer.
This is a composition after their calculation of the electronic structure of a natural alexandrite from Malyshevo in the Ural mountains, Russia. Nice way to end the week!
02-17. Chrysoberyl #6.
From a very similar Hazen&Finger database resource than yesterday. What a remarkable difference! All it took was to remove a few atoms. It brought up this strange, symmetrical and spherical symbol. I repeated it several times on the background for good measure!
02-16. Chrysoberyl #5.
From Hazen & Finger study on high-temperature crystal chemistry of phenakite and chrysoberyl. My (designer) conclusion – they don’t get along too well esthetically. For some reason, the units lose the consistency, harmony, and balance of the previous pure chrysoberyl design. Art too is a journey of discovery!
02-15. Chrysoberyl #4
Completely surprised again!
I barely retouched the original visualization. I found the combination of the almost perfect symmetry and hypnotizing moire effect totally irresistible! I guess credits for this one should go to Koichi Momma for maintaining the VESTA program and R.Hazen & L. Finger for their database resource hosted by the UofA in Tucson, AZ.
02-14. Chrysoberyl #3
Another unexpected outcome.
Chrysoberyl is a very hard crystal ( 8.5 on the Mohs’ scale of hardness) but apparently, ready to offer a wealth of visual information. That is – if you’re patient enough, and know where to look!
From the database resource of R.Hazen.
02-13. Chrysoberyl #2
This improbable shape is actually several variations of a chrysoberyl crystal cell. The odd arrow-like structures are the arrangement of the 24 polyhedra that constitute a single shell. I left them as they came! The 141 atoms create an interesting symmetry pattern too.
From data resources collected by W. Bragg & G. Brown.
02-12. Chrysoberyl #1.
From beryl to chrysoberyl for week #7 of this 52 grains of sand -one image a day tour of the geometry of nature. They both have almost the same name, but actually completely different in their atomic structure and color. Chrysoberyl is an extremely hard crystal that belongs to the orthorhombic family. It has various shades of green, yellow, brownish and change color under incandescent light. It can be found in Australia, Africa, and Russia where the Alexandrite, a chrysoberyl crystal green by day – red by night – was named after the Czar Alexander II.
