Archive for 2016

It was time to prepare again for the second trip of the year to Madagascar to fill up a twenty foot container full of Crystals and Fossils to bring back to the UK. The journey takes about twenty four hours of travelling filled with excitement at what wonders we will be able to obtain for our customers. It has been eighteen and a half years now of travelling to this mysterious island off the east coast of Africa and i often reflect on the many trips i have taken there in the different seasons.…

Fossils and Crystals are beautiful natural objects which make fantastic gifts at Christmas, Anniversaries, Birthdays or just when you want to give an extra special thank you to someone. If you are a collector a healer or someone who finds mother natures treasures irresistible a fossil or crystal can make a wonderful and unique gift which is timeless and a real talking point and will outlast any gift that will go in or out of fashion.…

Asterism is a name taken from the ancient Greeks and it is the phenomenom of gemstones exhibiting a luminous star like shape when cut into a rounded domed cabochon or even a sphere like the star rose quartz spheres we sell at Madagascan Direct. Not all rose quartz will exhibit asterism but the rose quartz from Madagascar is well known to have a tendancy to produce this wonderful marvel. Natural sunlight is the perfect light to see the …

There was a once a time where modern science, and with it the wonders of geology did not exist. Fossils of many dinosaurs were yet to be discovered, and their full significance with regards to evolution remained unknown. Yet one young woman changed all this, setting in motion a scientific revolution. That woman’s name was Mary Anning. Born one summer’s day in May 1799, Mary Anning spent most of her life upon the coastal cliffs of …

Pure quartz is beautiful. Sleek clear quartz has a world-renowned aesthetic. Yet alongside pure quartz there exists the equally, if not more, beautiful varieties of quartz which also contain mineral inclusions. Included quartz is the name for quartz pieces which in addition to the usual quartz crystalline structure, are also composed from various other minerals or crystals, for example epidote or tourmaline (the aforementioned ‘inclusions’). …

Recently, the fossil world has been taken by storm via a series of fascinating discoveries, particularly of rare dinosaur fossils that have shed light on important evolutionary processes. A landmark discovery has taken place recently: within the jaw of a duck-billed dwarf dinosaur (hadrosaur), the first ever facial tumour in a fossil has been found. This 69 million years old …

We have just received the fruits from the trip I took to Madagascar in early March 2016 to fill a 20 foot container full of fossils and crystals. I arrived just after the rainy season and the days were baking hot with cool evenings often interrupted by violent thunder storms which set the skies alight with the dancing lightning and the deep and ominous bellows of thunder reverberating around the capital of Madagascar Antananarivo which is generally affectionately called Tana.…

Iridescent ammonites are reputed worldwide for their beautiful rainbow-like glow. A special gemstone, ammolite, is formed from fossilised ammonite shells, and also displays this terrific iridescent effect. When the ammonite was alive, nacre was the main component of the shell: after the organism’s death, the shell fossilised over time to form aragonite. The ammolite can also contain many other minerals such as calcite and pyrite. …

Madagascar is an island country in the Indian Ocean, near Africa, that is filled with unparalleled riches of fossils and crystals. The island is famous for its unique flora and fauna, particular the lemur species; one of the beautiful smaller islands that envelop the main island, Nosy Komba, is even referred to as the Island of Lemurs. Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot, for most of its wildlife cannot be found anywhere else on Earth due to the evolution of its populations in isolation from the rest of the world.…

Quartz is one of the most common minerals in the world. It can be found in many locations across the globe, andphantom quartz in either sedimentary, igneous or metamorphic rock. It owes its name to the German language, however the ancient Greeks referred to quartz with their word for ‘ice cold’ because prominent thinkers of the time believed the mineral to have been created from ice. …