Gems, Precious Stones, Precious Metals - Citrine

Citrine - Gem Color 4 - #9FA91F

Citrine is a variety of quartz whose color ranges from a pale yellow to brown. Natural citrines are rare; most commercial citrines are heat-treated amethysts or smoky quartzes. It is nearly impossible to tell cut citrine from yellow topaz visibly, but they differ in hardness. Citrine has ferric impurities, and is rarely found naturally. The name is derived from Latin citrina which means "yellow" and is also the origin of the word "citron." Citrine is one of three traditional birthstones for the month of November.


Quartz is the second most abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO ₄ silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO ₂ . There are many different varieties of quartz, several of which are semi-precious gemstones. Citrine is one of those.