By the Nineteen Thirties, the electronics trade had become dependent on quartz crystals. The only supply of suitable crystals was Brazil; nevertheless, World War II disrupted the provides from Brazil, so nations attempted to synthesize quartz on a industrial scale. German mineralogist Richard Nacken (1884–1971) achieved some success during the Nineteen Thirties and 1940s. After the warfare, many laboratories attempted to grow giant quartz crystals. Army Signal Corps contracted with Bell Laboratories and with the Brush Development Company of Cleveland, Ohio to synthesize crystals following Nacken's lead.

It is quite common in sedimentary rocks similar to sandstone and shale. It is a typical constituent of schist, gneiss, quartzite and different metamorphic rocks. Quartz has the bottom potential for weathering in the Goldich dissolution sequence and consequently it is very widespread as a residual mineral in stream sediments and residual soils. Generally a high presence of quartz suggests a 'mature' rock, since it signifies the rock has been closely reworked and quartz was the first mineral that endured heavy weathering. Granite rock in the cliff of Gros la Tête on Aride Island, Seychelles.

He discovered that regardless of a quartz crystal's dimension or shape, its long prism faces all the time joined at a perfect 60° angle. While the vast majority of quartz crystallizes from molten magma, quartz also chemically precipitates from scorching hydrothermal veins as gangue, sometimes with ore minerals like gold, silver and copper.

Quartz's piezoelectric properties were found by Jacques and Pierre Curie in 1880. The quartz oscillator or resonator was first developed by Walter Guyton Cady in 1921. George Washington Pierce designed and patented quartz crystal oscillators in 1923.

Well-shaped crystals might reach several meters in length and weigh hundreds of kilograms. Quartz is a defining constituent of granite and different felsic igneous rocks.

(Prior to World War II, Brush Development produced piezoelectric crystals for document players.) By 1948, Brush Development had grown crystals that have been 1.5 inches (3.eight cm) in diameter, the largest thus far. By the Nineteen Fifties, hydrothermal synthesis techniques had been producing synthetic quartz crystals on an industrial scale, and right now nearly all the quartz crystal used in the modern electronics industry is synthetic.

Warren Marrison created the first quartz oscillator clock based on the work of Cady and Pierce in 1927. In the 17th century, Nicolas Steno's examine of quartz paved the way for modern crystallography.