Beautiful tiger's eye sphere

A tiger's eye sphere from South Africa with an intense gold-brown color and naturally vibrant grain. Depending on the incidence of light, the stone displays the typical silky shimmer that travels across the surface like a sliding streak of light.

This iridescent effect is called chatoyancy and is caused by parallel-aligned fiber structures in the quartz. Tiger's eye is a pseudomorph after crocidolite, an asbestos fiber that has been replaced by quartz over geological time.

South Africa is the classic deposit for tiger's eye worldwide, especially the Pomfret region. The sphere shows iridescence differently from every angle, which is the signature of this mineral.