Is there a naturally found alternative to a quartz clock?

Question

In terms of other crystals /stones etc

Also what crystals would keep time badly allowing time/frequency to fluctuate due to temperature or other factors? Or even polar opposite of quartz.

Or other interesting geoloical time related ideas?

thanks semiconductor

Answer 1

Regular quartz crystals have to be cut accurately in the x,y an z planes to resonate properly. If somebody made a dog's breakfast of the cutting process then inserting an M&M between two pieces of wire would be more accurate.

Answer 2

Your question is very interesting.
There are many websites that are similarly interesting. However, "naturally found" was not easy to decipher.
There is barium titanate, a typical ferroelectric of the displacive type, is due to a polarization catastrophe, in which, if an ion is displaced from equilibrium slightly, the force from the local electric fields due to the ions in the crystal increase faster than the elastic-restoring forces. This leads to an asymmetrical shift in the equilibrium ion positions and hence to a permanent dipole moment. In an order-disorder ferroelectric, there is a dipole moment in each unit cell, but at high temperatures they are pointing in random directions. Upon lowering the temperature and going through the phase transition, the dipoles order, all pointing in the same direction within a domain.
The other one is lead zirconate titanate.