#helenite

1980s fantasy-themed silver and helenite jewelry by Monica Roi Saxon / MRS Sunshine Enterprises Inc (ad in Dragon magazine #62, June 1982).  Helenite is an artificial glass made by fusing ash from the 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens.

Helenite

While I don't normally cover synthetic/man-made gems, this one attracted my attention due to its cool origin. It is a glass made from melting the volcanic ash from Mt St Helens' 1980 eruption, with selective impurities added to the mix to produce vibrant red, blue or green colours. It is then made into jewellery and sold to tourists visiting the area as souvenirs. Ash was already a souvenir in its raw form, but workers salvaging things accidentally melted some with an acetylene torch, creating a green glass. Others took up the idea in ovens, and a tourist nicknack industry was born. Being formed of melted ash the material has similar properties to obsidian, and it has been wrongly described as such. So while it is not a real stone, there still remains a certain amount of romance to it, for those of us inclined to rock collecting to add a pretty sample of the eruption.

Loz

Image credit: Derek Ramsey

by Debra Wilson

When Mount St. Helens erupted in the State of Washington on May 18, 1980, it became the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic eruption in the history of the contiguous United States. The devastating results were not only measured by the fatalities and massive destruction but it also left behind about 540,000,000 tons of ash over an area of more than 22,000 square miles. The enormous task of cleanup was daunting. This is where serendipity stepped in to create great beauty from the ashes. 

During the salvage effort, workers from a regional timber company were using acetylene torches to cut through twisted metal debris and they accidentally discovered that the torch melted the volcanic ash into a green glassy substance. This led to laboratory experiments that determined green glass could be produced by heating the ash to 2700° Fahrenheit and then rapidly cooling it. The glass quickly began being commercially produced and faceted into gemstones. It is marketed under the names Obsidianite, Helenite, Emerald Obsidianite or Mount St. Helens Obsidian. Its stunning green color has made it an attractive alternative to the more expensive emerald gemstone, though not as durable (a hardness of 5 to 5 ½ as compared to 7 ½ to 8 for emerald). Blue and red varieties are also produced by adding coloring agents to the melt.

The Section of Minerals obtained a faceted stone of Obsidianite as part of a donation of gemstones in 2009. It is a green oval cut stone, as you can see from the photo, and weighs 42.1 carats. This stone is now on display in the Treated & Synthetic Stones case in Wertz Gallery.