La Célestine, what is this stone?

Celestine is a stone very appreciated for its blue color and its chemical composition . Associated with the purity of the sky, celestite is a calming stone with subtle and spiritual energies, also known as the Stone of Angels .

What is Celestine?

Celestine , also called celestite, is a stone that is naturally composed of strontium and sulfur. This stone belongs to the group of sulphates.

Celestine is a crystal rich in mineral salts. It originates in volcanic rocks and other hydrothermal environments, most often on other stones, and more or less dispersed in sedimentary rocks. It is a mineral with a rather dense, fibrous structure like barite. This stone contains impurities that are generally colored blue-green, light red, brown or even red-brown or even yellow due to the presence of sulphur. It is found in particular in the dolomites, limestones or in sandstones.

Its hardness varies between 3 and 3.5 and its color is blue, colorless to mauve.

These crystals usually have the shape of an elongated prism or a more flattened shape. Sometimes these crystals can take the form of tablets. This form being rarer, it is the most sought after. Celestine stone also appears in the form of geodes or nodules, inside sedimentary formations.

Natural celestine geode from Madagascar

Where do you find celestine?

The main deposits of celestite are found in Madagascar, Libya, Slovakia, Russia, the United States, Canada, Brazil and Mexico. But it is also found in Europe like Austria, UK, Germany, Poland, Spain, Italy and even France.

Where does its pretty name come from?

It takes its name from the Greek “ coelestis ”, meaning “ heavenly ”, and from the Latin “ caelestis ”, meaning “ come from the sky ”. This is why this mineral is also commonly called " Stone of the Angels ".

This designation would also be a homage to the first name of Saint-Célestin , pope from 1294, honored on the feast day of the Célestines, before retiring for a solitary life. The Romans, on the other hand, called this stone “ Aqua-Aura”. “, name now reserved for certain rock crystals chemically modified to give them a blue color.

Other derivative names are also given to this precious stone, such as coelestine, colestine, celestite , or still others less connoted: cliftonite, dioxynite, deschwegite, schutzite, sicilianite, or sulfated strontian.

Celestine originates from Madagascar. This stone was discovered in 1797 by Martin Heinrich Klaproth, who was a German chemist and mineralogist. The following year, in 1798, the stone was baptized Celestine by another German mineralogist and geologist, Abraham Gottlob Werner. The latter chose this word in relation to the color of the stone which is blue, thus recalling the color of the sky, a color observed in the first samples collected.

Geode of Celestine from Madagascar

To know its virtues in lithotherapy, I invite you to read the other article devoted to it on the blog of the shop www.oussia.com .

I hope you have learned a little more about this wonderful stone?

You will find pretty natural specimens of Celestite on the oussia.com store.

Feel free to comment on this article and add your experiences.

Good day to all.