the.com/sodalite
A blue stone named for sodium, hiding glow-in-the-dark cousins and a habit of turning purple in sunlight.
means Sodalite is a deep-blue mineral, often streaked with white veins, prized as a semiprecious stone and named for the sodium locked inside its crystal structure.
from The name was coined in the early 19th century by joining 'soda' — the old word for sodium compounds, itself from the medieval Latin 'soda' (possibly via Arabic 'suwwad', a salt-rich plant burned for its ash) — with the Greek 'lithos', meaning 'stone'. So the word reads quite literally as 'sodium stone', a nod to the chemistry rather than the color.
- name origin
- Named for its sodium content
- secret glow
- Some varieties fluoresce orange under UV light
- sun fade
- Hackmanite cousin shifts color in sunlight
- royal trim
- Lines Canada's Princess Patricia palace walls
- lapis impostor
- Often mistaken for pricier lapis lazuli
sodalite from bancroft ontario — mining region in canada producing deep blue sodalite crystals since the 1800s
sodalite from mt vesuvius — volcanic mineral found in the 1906 eruption deposits in naples, italy
sodalite from greenland — massive sodalite deposits mined commercially in the ivigtut region for lapidary use