Turquoise Matrix

Jul 24, 2022
1 min read

Before the development of a southwest tourist market and the interest in Native American jewelry featuring beautiful turquoise in matrix, the only turquoise desired for use in Victorian style jewelry made by east coast jewelers was the clear sky blue non matrix. In this video Mike discusses matrix and we see some beautiful examples.

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Unknown member

Jul 25, 2022

The most common turquoise matrix material in my experience is limonite, not chert or rhyolite. Most of the brown turquoise matrix consists of limonite, not rhyolite.

Unknown member

Jul 25, 2022

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Thank you for pointing that out. As I said in the video The Geology of Turquoise, I am not a geologist and my knowledge of turquoise geology is limited. I welcome others to share information on matrix formation.