Where do crystals and semi precious stones come from?
Are natural crystals and semi precious stones used by the new age movement (of which I’m one) mined? if so, how much impact is that mining or harvesting having on the surrounding environment and local people?
If grown, where do the raw materials come from, how and whats the environmental impact of this?
so are new age folk actually, albeit unwittingly, sponsoring what they denounce?
I can’t seem to find any information on this at all!
Some of em are. A surprising number of so-called natural stones are lab-created as well. The hematite you buy is particularly bad in this respect: a hint… if it is magnetic, it isn’t hematite. And even if it isn’t magnetic, it’s still probably not hematite. Quartz is often faked. And oh, lord, if you have seen the stuff that people try to pass off as turquoise? Oh man. Other stones are “real” in the sense that they have the right chemical composition, but are grown in a lab. Even gem-quality diamond can now be manmade. These processes do consume energy and are typically done in third-world nations (especially India), but the precursors (raw materials) are not anything too lethal. Glass, iron ore, things like that.
Fine crystals and semiprecious stones are not widely mined… mining is an extremely expensive operation, and there’s not much profit in selling sparklies to the new-agers. Most semiprecious stone mines are shallow, and consist of a few people digging by hand or with small tools, so the impact is quite small there too. A lot of semiprecious stone mines will let you come and try and dig your own… as a kid I dug my own opals in California! Modern precious-metal mines are usually not that high-impact anyway… the most notorious environment wreckers are open-pit operations, which are not your problem.
So yeah, there’s an impact. It’s pretty slight, and certainly isn’t going to destroy the planet, but it’s there.
Brazil’s Gem Stones and Mining History
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