Page 39 - Tạp chí bonsai cây cảnh BCI 2015Q1

Top right; This sharply angled, lustrous chalcedony stone is
transformed into a figure when stood on end in the classic style
hand carved base. It is a bird? The stone and base is 15 cm wide,
19.8 cm high, and 7 cm deep (5.9 x 7.8 x 2.8 inches).

the harder, siliceous Gobi stones were often varying
shades of reds, browns, and lighter colors than the
more southern rocks. These stones with their deep,
rich, sometimes-lustrous appearance quickly became
more popular in China than the traditional stones
of earlier times. They are many forms of chalcedony
stones that are found in the Gobi Desert. These too, are
primarily composed of silica or some form of silica.
Chalcedony, a catchall category for stones formed
from cryptocrystalline forms of silica, are stones that
appear waxy, lustrous, sometimes semi-transparent,
and they occur in a variety of colors. This article il-
lustrated several types of chalcedony stones from the
Gobi Desert.
Desert stones of the American Southwest are often
lighter in color and more brightly colored than the
black and greenish-black stones pulled from the Eel
River in northern California. North American and Bottom; This irregular piece of cream-white chalcedony was first illustrated in the Chinese language
book Desert Rare Stone Museum Treasures in 2008. It is 12 cm wide, 21 cm high and 11.5 cm deep (4.7
much of Europe were more strongly influenced by x 8.3 x 4.5 inches) including the hand-carved wood base.
Japanese stone appreciation concepts; thus, early stone
enthusiasts tended to look for stones in America and
Europe that closely emulated those found in Japan. It
was obvious that the American desert stones did not
fit into the Japanese suiseki concepts. Japan does not
have any desert regions to compare with these two vast
desert areas. The desert stones are often composed of
different materials, formed by different forces, and
should be considered independent of Japanese stones.
In the America Mojave Desert, many excellent col-
lected stones are composed of rhyolite. Rhyolite is
formed by rapidly cooling magna. The quick cooling
prevents the formation of well-defined crystals. These
stones are mostly quartz and feldspar with minor ele-
ments that contribute to the light colors of these stones
that typically range from white to pink. There are sev-
eral fine examples of beautiful, light-colored rhyolite
stones illustrated in this article. These and other desert
stones best fit into the newly emerging North Ameri-
can concepts for stone appreciation.
The Gobi is much larger than the Mojave Desert
and runs southwest to northeast for roughly 1,600 km
(1,000) miles in northern and northwestern China
and is up to 800 km (500 miles) wide. It is a cold des-
ert and semi-desert region on a raised plateau ranging
from 910 to 1,500 meters (2,900 to nearly 5,000 feet)
in elevation. The landscape is primarily rocky with
some sand dunes in different regions and with some
mountain ranges and dry, ancient lake beds. In com-
parison, the Mojave Desert occupies an area of about
64,750 square kilometers (22,000 square miles) in an
irregular shaped region of southeastern and central
California, southern Nevada, southwestern Nevada

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