Buzzing Terra Peridot

The progressive participle of buzz — borrowed metaphorically as a color word since the late twentieth century for hues that read as visually loud and slightly destabilizing. Buzzing yellow, buzzing magenta: the implication is saturation pushed past comfortable into the realm of optical agitation. Sits at the bright-bucket extreme alongside electric.

Latin terra, earth-or-land. As a color modifier, terra implies a earth-globe-and-loamy-and-grounded quality, the visual register of Pale-Blue-Dot-and-Apollo-Terra hand-earth-globe-and-loamy-and-grounded Pale-Blue-Dot-and-Apollo-and-Earthrise terra-and-earth-globe-and-loamy-and-grounded surfaces under Pale-Blue-Dot-and-Apollo-and-Earthrise lunar-orbit-and-deep-space earth-globe-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to luna and sol in usage.

The transparent green variety of olivine — the gem mined from Egyptian Zabargad Island since pharaonic times and now from arid mountain ranges in Pakistan, Arizona, and Vietnam. The color refers to a faceted peridot: a clean, slightly yellow-shifted green with the gem's signature internal warmth. Lighter than emerald, brighter than olivine in its rough state, with the unusual gem-trade quality of being one of the few minerals that occurs in only one color.