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blue alabaster

Stone Conversations : Archive 10 : Message 00405

From: grossman@zzzzzzzzz
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 10:01:55 -0500 (EST)
Subject: blue alabaster

Greetings Carvers, I've been trying to track down the identity of the
stone labeled blue alabster on my art site and have determined that it's
actually anhydrite rather than alabaster. Actually I'm not sure of the
chemical differences between the two they're both CaSO4 but gypsum
(alabaster?) has two water molecules attached and it looks like anhydrite
doesn't. Anhydrite certainly is much harder to carve - this stone is
about 3.5 on the MOHS scale. Can our list geologists elaborate a bit,
perhaps let us know the differences between chlorite, anhydrite,
alabaster, etc. TIA, g2

Gary D. Grossman
Distinguished Research Professor - Animal Ecology
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~grossman/

G. Grossman Fine Art
http://www.negia.net/~grossman/

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