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This light blue to dark blue crystal is mainly composed of lazulite
(or ultramarine). This beautiful sky-blue or ultramarine stone had touches of gold colour.
Lapis lazuli is silica of the feldspathoid group, usually present in metamorphic limestone in
contact
with granites. Lapis lazuli powder was used by renowned painters of
the past for its incomparable blue. Flaubert said: “An ultramarine sky like lapis lazuli”. Used in
jewellery or as an ornamental stone in Antiquity, lapis lazuli was sometimes mistaken for emerald.
Lapis lazuli offers its beautiful gold colour to the manufacture of exquisite jewels, but it is a
little brittle, as it is easily affected by cosmetics, acids and detergents.
The main deposits are located on the slopes of the Vesuvius, on the shores of the Baikal lake,
in the Colorado Canyon and at the famous deposit of Sar-e-Sang in Afghanistan.
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