silicates
Spodumene
LiAlSi2O6
- Also known as
- kunzitehiddenitetriphane
- Crystal system
- monoclinic
- Hardness
- 6.5–7 on the Mohs scale
- Lustre
- vitreous
- Colour
- Colourless, grey, pink as kunzite, green as hiddenite
- Where it forms
- In lithium pegmatites, sometimes as gigantic crystals — spodumene crystals over ten metres long have been recorded in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
- Chiefly from
- Minas Gerais, BrazilAfghanistanWestern AustraliaNorth Carolina, United States
Why it is that colour
Manganese gives the pink of kunzite; chromium gives the green of hiddenite. Both colours fade with prolonged exposure to strong light, which is unusual and genuinely limits their use in jewellery.
Safety
Safe to handle. It has perfect cleavage in two directions and is notoriously difficult to cut, so faceted stones are fragile.
Where it comes from
The dominant lithium ore, and therefore one of the most economically significant minerals in the world right now. Western Australian mines at Greenbushes and Pilgangoora feed the battery supply chain, and lithium demand has made a formerly obscure pegmatite mineral strategically important.
Historical use
Lithium from spodumene goes into batteries, into ceramics and glass, and into psychiatric medicine. Gem-quality kunzite is a by-product of an industrial operation.
Recorded as history and attributed where possible. That a stone was used for something establishes that people used it, not that it worked.
What is attributed to it, and since when
Kunzite was named in 1902 after George Kunz, the same Tiffany gemmologist who named morganite. Neither it nor spodumene generally has any traditional history, and all attached meanings are twentieth-century.
Described, not endorsed. Dating a claim is not the same as assessing it — but an association that first appears in a book published in 1985 is not an ancient inheritance, whatever the label says. A sincere account of feeling better is compatible with the stone doing nothing — see the placebo effect.
Worth knowing
Spodumene is where the crystal shelf meets the energy transition. It is the principal ore of lithium, which means it is in the battery of every electric vehicle and most phones, and demand for it has transformed pegmatite mining in Australia, Chile, Zimbabwe and elsewhere within about a decade.
Kunzite, the pink gem variety, fades. Leave it in a sunny window and the colour goes, permanently, which is why it was sometimes called the evening stone and why jewellers are cautious about it.
There is something worth noting in the pairing. The same mineral supplies a gemstone whose colour does not last and the metal that makes rechargeable batteries possible, and only one of those two facts appears on a label.
Identity checked against IMA-CNMNC master list, June 2025.