• Quarts has many industrial applications.druze of crystals image by Alexander Maksimov from Fotolia.com
  
  Quartz is a crystal made up from two parts oxygen and one part silicon. It's a natural mineral distributed all around the Earth, but particularly abundant in sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks. Because this stone had a hardness of seven on Mohs Scale and offers chemical inertness, quartz has many potential applications. One example is quartz crystal watches that use quartz as a source of energy.
  
  

Electrical Properties

• The optical and electrical properties in silica makes this crystal ideally suited for electronic applications including circuitry, timers, clocks, watches, cellphone and television receivers. To improve the quality of results, many products utilize a man-made quartz rather than naturally mined for consistency.
  
  

Quartz Sand

• Quartz sand acts as filter in the manufacturing of products like rubber and paint. Additionally carefully chosen sized quartz grains provide traction in mining and railroad efforts. You'll also find quartz sand on the golf course and in children' sand boxes. In addition to these applications, foundries use quart sand for its heat resistance, particularly in molds, and other industries use it as a scrubbing agent in jobs like sandblasting.
  
  

Mining Natural Gas

• The petroleum industry uses sand in mining natural gas. By forcing a sand slurry into gas well fractures at high pressure the fractures remain open and release pressure. This allows the natural gas into the well bore.
  
  

Glass Making

• Some quartz has very high silica content. In sand form, this gets used for glass making. Example products produced by high silica quartz sand include fiberglass and container glass.
  
  

Other Applications

• Outside of industrial applications, quartz crystals appear frequently in various arts and crafts. Jewelry uses them as a substitute for more expensive gemstones, for example. You can find quartz crystal bookends, carved quartz figurines, and quartz used in crafts like beading.