gems, beryl, emerald, AI, artificial intelligence

A recent conversation with the AI chatbot is a cautionary tale for those who rely heavily on AI for information.

gems, corundum, inclusions.5, Sri Lanka.12

One of the beauties of working with gemstones is that each time you peer into a stone, you get a glimpse of the universe held within. When we first examined the scene in a star sapphire (see above), we were delighted with the view. A feature that immediately stands out is the triangular crystal, which displays terraced growth features and iridescence on the surface when illuminated with a fiber-optic light. Analysis with micro Raman revealed that this crystal is apatite. What makes the scene even more stunning is the way the crystal seems to float over a cloud of rutile silk. This same silk is what creates asterism in the stone. While in this case the apatite crystal resides in a sapphire from Sri Lanka, apatite has also been reported in corundum from a variety of sources, including Afghanistan, Cambodia, Madagascar, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tanzania, Thailand, the United States, and Vietnam. Apatite can be found not only in ruby and sapphire from different origins, but also in many other types of gems. In our laboratory, we have encountered apatite inclusions in emerald, spinel, and garnet. Apatite is a relatively common mineral, so it is not surprising to find it so often as an inclusion. Although it may occur frequently, in this instance it is anything but mundane.

gems, beryl, emerald, emerald fillers, LW UV torch

Of the treatments we see in the laboratory, fissure filling has become one of the most ubiquitous. We have observed this treatment in a variety of stones, including emerald, ruby, sapphire, spinel, tourmaline, tanzanite, and more. The filling of fractures minimizes their appearance, making the gems appear cleaner. Fissure filling can be detected with a variety of methods. One way is to examine the infrared spectrum, where some fillers display distinctive peaks. Another is the hot point method, where oils can be observed leaking out in droplets. Some fillers are unmasked with simple observation in the microscope, because they display flashes of color or because they include visible dyes.

garnet, tsavorite, gems

On October 22, 2007, TanzaniteOne, the world leader in tanzanite mining, announced the acquisition of a tsavorite project through its subsidiary, TsavoriteOne Mining Ltd. The move was not surprising to people familiar with these gems given that tanzanite is a gem geologically linked with tsavorite. More recently, in September 2008, the TsavoriteOne project was again in the news when Gemfields, a group involved in emerald mining in Zambia, made a surprise offer for TanzaniteOne. This article presents an update on tsavorite, along with studying its potential as one of the coming century's major gemstones.

corundum, color.4, treatments.6, gems

One of the greatest gemological challenges is determining if a ruby or sapphire has been heat treated. UV fluorescence can assist in that identification, as well as detecting fillers in emerald.

emeralds, beryl, emerald enhancements, treatments, gems

An examination of gemological dogma relating to emerald enhancements… It started small. Probably a joke at the office water cooler. Rumor was that the US Postal Service was lobbying to put a tax on e-mail. Next thing you know, angry messages are flying around the world and I'm dusting off my bazooka for an assault on the Capital building. That is until I found out it wasn't true. It mighta been true, it coulda been true, oh it shoulda been true, but alas, it simply wasn't. Damn! Beliefs. We guard 'em closely. We bow down to them, defend them to the death. We are Pope Paul V railing against Galileo's Copernican astronomy. Don't know if you're like me, but once I get an idea in my head, it takes over like some kinda virus. All of a sudden, it's down with the godless commies, pox on the infidels and the next thing you know, I'm whistling the David Koresh death march…

treatments, gem enhancement, beryl, emerald, gems

IT is ICA Congress time and that means once again it's time for the biannual cat-fight over enhancements. For this year's main event, we nominate emerald and ruby. This article will deal primarily with emerald.

nomenclature, red beryl, emerald, red beryl, gems

gems, gem trade in Asia, gem business, trade between Europe and Asia, corundum, history.1, Early Modern trade, Armenia, Armenians, Iran, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, India, Turkey

A rare 1688 probate inventory documents the extensive gem collection of Gregorio di Girach-Mirman (1612–1688), a prominent Armenian merchant active in Venice and Livorno, Italy. Originally written in Armenian and later translated into Italian, this archival record lists more than 100,000 gemstones, including diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, and pearls, as well as more than 1,700 kilograms of rough amber, garnet, lapis lazuli, and turquoise. Housed in the State Archives of Venice, the inventory offers a uniquely detailed window into the early modern luxury trade and highlights the global commercial reach of Armenian merchant families like the Girach-Mirmans. Drawing on this previously unstudied source, along with a broader set of archival documents from across Europe and Armenia, the present article reconstructs the world of seventeenth-century gem dealing and collecting. It argues that Armenian merchants were central figures in the global trade of luxury goods, operating alongside and sometimes in competition with better-known European contemporaries. The provenance and diversity of Gregorio’s gem holdings, likely sourced from as far as modern-day Colombia, Sri Lanka, Iran, and Myanmar, attest to the geographic reach of Armenian trading networks and the sophistication of their market knowledge. By placing this inventory in its global and material context, the article contributes to ongoing discussions around early modern economic history, material culture, and global commodity flows across Eurasia and the New World. It demonstrates that gem inventories, often overlooked as solely bureaucratic and estate documents, can illuminate the complexity of merchant strategies, the transcontinental mobility of luxury goods, and the dynamics of status and prestige in the early modern period. Finally, one of the central aims of this article is to illuminate the inner workings of gem dealing in this period, including practices of sourcing and collecting, through a rare body of obscure commercial correspondence. These materials offer an exceptional view into a dimension of the trade that remains largely inaccessible and nearly absent from existing historiography.

gems, beryl, emerald, Afghanistan, Egypt, Colombia, history of gemology, Central Asia, China, Tajikistan, Pakistan

Although the emerald deposits in India and the Himalayas were not officially discovered before the 20th century, recent gemological analyses conducted by the LFG (French Gemological Laboratory) on emeralds from historical jewelry dating back to the 16th century have shown that they correspond to the characteristics of the Swat deposits (Pakistan). This discovery is consistent with ancient gemological literature, which, since Theophrastus (4th century BCE), mentions the Himalayas as a source of emeralds. This interdisciplinary article explores the methodological difficulties inherent in historical gemology and highlights the importance of scientific gemology for art history and archaeology.