Articles

Hogbomite-filled dislocations in a Vietnamese spinel.

A web-like fingerprint creates a maze-like pattern in spinel.

The early history of beryllium diffusion in sapphire, starting with the 2001 appearance of large numbers of padparadscha sapphires in the Thai gem market.

The internal world never fails to amaze, as witnessed by this incredible video of a negative crystal in a Sri Lanka sapphire.

An apatite crystal appears to float, suspended over a rutile silk cloud in a star sapphire.

This article examines a blue apatite crystal that was found in a pyrope-spessartine garnet that is said to have come from Tanzania's Lindi Province.

This article discusses the challenges of identifying inclusions based on observation alone. While certain features can help narrow down the possibilities, other methods such as micro Raman help identify inclusions with a greater degree of certainty.

Abū Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bīrūnī was born in 973 CE, in what is now Uzbekistan. A polymath of the Islamic Golden Age, he distinguished himself in numerous fields, including medicine, astronomy, history, mathematics, physics, mineralogy, gemmology, encyclopedism, geography, philosophy, sociology, and travel. His vast intellectual contributions rank him among the greatest minds of any era. Al-Bīrūnī authored some 145 works, but tragically many of these are now lost. Given the sheer scale and depth of his intellectual legacy, any attempt to comprehensively study al-Bīrūnī’s contributions is inevitably limited and fraught with gaps. However, what we do know demonstrates that this was a remarkable man, on the order of an Aristotle or Einstein. And yet much of the world has never even heard of him. This paper will largely focus on his gemmological work, while also touching on his other accomplishments.

The story of Richard Hughes' four-decade adventure with jade, from Burma's jadeite mines to China's classic mutton-fat nephrite deposit at Hetian, Xinjiang Province. The work of China's modern jade carving masters is also discussed.

This article discusses the use of handheld long-wave ultraviolet torches with the microscope. It has been found that these have tremendous utility in identifying and characterizing certain oiled gemstones, such as emerald, tourmaline, etc.