Tiger Eye Crystal Egg

In the late 1800s, geologists thought that tiger's eye and the related blue-green stone, hawk's eye, were quartz replacements of crocidolite - a blue form of asbestos. They believed that quartz replaced most of the crocidolite, and the remaining asbestos provided the bluish color.

Tiger's eye is formed when parallel veins of crocidolite (blue asbestos) fibres are first altered to iron oxides and then replaced by silica. As a result it is more opaque, and has a rich yellow to brown colour.

Tiger iron (or tigereye matrix) is a quartz-lignite aggregate gemstone containing layers of vibrant golden tigereye, metallic grey hematite and rich, red jasper. Tiger iron is also sometimes called mugglestone, to the surprise and delight of Harry Potter fans everywhere!