Blue benitoite crystals on white natrolite, mined in San Benito County. Chris Ralph of Nevada-outback-gems.com Public domain
Most Californians can rattle off a few of the state’s best-known official symbols. State bird? California quail. State flower? California poppy. State tree? California redwood. State animal? The now-extirpated California grizzly bear.
They may even know the state mineral: the shiny ore that kicked off the Gold Rush.
The state gemstone, however, is more obscure. Discovered in 1907 in San Benito County near the now-abandoned New Indria mercury mine, blue-hued benitoite is exceedingly rare. Though it's found in a few other locations—including Japan and Australia—gemstone-quality benitoite has only been found in its namesake county. BenitoLink.com, a nonprofit news site in this rural Central California county, provides an engaging history of the gemstone, as well as information on where rockhounds can hunt for the elusive ditrigonal dipyramidal barium titanium cyclosilicate, as it’s known to geologists.
Read “How San Benito County became ground zero for a rare gemstone” on BenitoLink.com.
