Sodalite, standard

Sodalite is a rare mineral that is occasionally used as ornamental stone, as well as in the decorative arts. It is a cubic sodic aluminosilicate mineral, named after its sodium content. Sodalite is a feldspathoid, and the main member of the sodalite group of minerals. Sodalite is variable in color, ranging from colorless, whitish pink to light blue, blue, green, grey, and a very dark blue. Though not considered as having been used as pigment in its own right, it may be part of some lapis lazuli samples together with hauyne, nosean, and lazurite. Sodalite is similar to lazurite and lapis lazuli in both its appearance and chemical properties, though being more of a royal blue than an ultramarine blue, with white, rather than blue streaks, and without the latter’s golden sparkle-due to the missing pyrite. Sodalite is found in only a few places on earth: at Mount Vesuvius near Naples, in Canada, Greenland, Norway, Portugal, Romania, and Russia. The sodalite from Kremer Pigmente comes from Brazil.