Mookaite is so cool my guys!

So I was looking stuff up about mookaite the other day (as you do) and aside from being an absolutely gorgeous rock (seriously, have you looked at it? Its so pretty! Don’t worry if you haven’t I’m going to make you look at it in a second) did you know its made from silica based remains of Radiolaria? That’s a microscopic aquatic organism that used to live in the sea that eventually became Western Australia in the Lower Cretaceous Period, about 110 million years ago!

These guys ↴

They died over a shallow marine shelf and eventually formed the Windalia Radiolarite formation along with some calcareous nanoplankton fossils. These eventually became chalcedony, an intergrowth of the silica based moganite and quartz crystal structures. This classifies it as a jasper quartz gemstone.

The color in the stone comes from chromium (yellow) and iron oxide (red). Sometimes the stones will have a lighter pink tint, this comes from manganese ions which are also present.

Now the really cool thing (and also thing we should keep in mind) is that mookaite is only found near Gascoyne Junction and Mooka Creek in Kennedy Range National Park. Mookaite was formed solely in this location and nowhere else in the world!

Here’s some pictures of mookaite along with some jewelry I’ve made!