The Gemstone Journey

Rare and wonderful romantic gems have fascinated humanity for millennia, but the beauty and rarity of

gemstone

s is only part of their story. There is also the adventure of being a

gemstone

buyer. It's pretty amazing that I have that experience of traveling around the world to go to these places. Whether it is the mine or the source to obtain that gemstone, this violet blue tanzanite stone or this deep red ruby ​​are not only beautiful and valuable treasures, but they are also the symbolic end of an epic story that began eons ago, ago. 50 million years. a year ago it was deposited and suddenly, in a year to the first to say it, the thrill of discovery is just one chapter in a search that can span thousands of miles and involve hundreds of man-hours sent everywhere, from minds primitive to modern minds. laboratories is a story that combines traditional craftsmanship and cutting-edge technology to create the world's most timeless works of art, from raw crystal to treasured heirlooms from the depths underground to the jewelry box on your dresser.

Join us as we follow the gemstones'

journey

through the mountains. In the south of Brazil is the mining region of Minas Jiraiya Mena's Urias is a large producer of gemstones in general and the third in the world even to the present date today miners can travel by elevator instead of climbing stairs rickety wood but In this emerald mine and in the Nova era, the day begins as it has for centuries with a

journey

deep underground, a thousand feet underground, miners use electric drills to drill holes in the granite face of the pit, miners attach fuses and detonators to the dynamite then back off a safe distance and activate the charges when the dust settles the heavy lifting begins transporting the rock containing the Emerald to the surface it's hard work keep bending and straightening it's This difficult part at night is not fun, but freeing the stone from the rock is not the first step in placing an emerald on someone's finger;

In reality, it is half of a journey that began millions of years before What is commonly called emerald is actually a green-tinged variety of the mineral beryl, beryllium, and aluminum cyclosilicate. To be precise, all minerals and most gemstones are minerals, the crystal structure is an ordered pattern that makes the same motif of atoms repeat in all three dimensions regularly. It's a complicated process that requires just the right amount of geological energy to align properly. atoms, it would take enormous amounts of heat and pressure to actually create one of the pockets and one of hard granite pegmatite;

Over time, a tremendously long time, the emerald will continue to grow adding new atoms to its crystal lattice for nature for a thousand years. These are very short times, so they typically take millions of years to grow, even though they take millions of years to make, most of the resulting crystals will be too small to be seen with the naked eye and even among those rare crystals great, few will be considered gems. quality just because it is a ruby ​​or an emerald or a sapphire or a diamond does not mean that it is something precious or valuable there are rubies, emeralds and sapphires that are not worth 50 cents taking into account the conditions to form gemstones that are transparent and have a color beautiful do not occur very often, large, well-formed crystals are also very unusual, making this 330 carat rough emerald a rare find, in fact, it is the result of just the right combination of chemicals and pressures.

The emerald itself is a silicate containing aluminum and a rare element called beryllium. The green color in emerald is caused by traces of vanadium and chromium. The slightest change in formula or pressure can produce dramatically different results, for example replacing aluminum with manganese produces the extremely rare red barrel. It looks like an emerald. It has exactly the same crystal structure. The exact same type of inclusions, except found under certain geological conditions that produce the color red instead of green, depending on what traces of impurities are present. Beryl can also be pink, white or yellow, add traces of aluminum and iron and the result is the delicate blue.

The gemstone aquamarine, aluminum and iron or aluminum oxide is what gives us the mineral corundum and when titanium is added to the mix we get another blue gemstone, blue sapphire. Many people in the world should still not realize that sapphires come in so many. colors, they think sapphire blue rubies are red, emeralds are green, but now they are starting to realize a little bit that sapphires come in all colors, sapphires can be blue, green, purple, pink, orange, yellow and even red, although with red stones. They are called rubies. Ruby and sapphire are exactly the same gem material with the exception of trace elements that cause the color, so ruby ​​gets its red color from chromium and sapphire gets its blue color from traces of iron and titanium, depending on the position. that occupies In the crystal structure of the mineral, the chromium that gives the ruby ​​a red color will make the emerald green, so the crystal structure of the material also has a very significant impact on the color we see in rare pink diamonds, for example, oh, they are The unusual color is mainly due to microscopic defects within the internal structure of the gemstones.

It is not a chemical substance that is trapped in the manufacturing of diamonds. Molecules and things are not aligned and that causes a refraction of light and then you get pink diamonds instead of white ones. White or colorless diamonds are unique because they consist of a single carbon element, but like other gems, impurities can radically alter the diamond's tint. Chemistry and geology, however, are not the only sciences that can begin the gemstone journey. Biology may also play a role. There are a lot of organic gemstones, such as ivory, which comes from the tusks of elephants. Coral is also a very common gemstone produced by the life stream.

Fossilized wood is actually a type of charcoal. Primeval forests are also the source of amber, which is a fossilized material. tree sap True amber was found in certain regions of the world, only in the Baltic region, for example, it appeared on the shores of the Baltic Sea as if it were a gift from the waters, but a round and shiny pearl is, by far , the most precious. Organically produced gem pearls are formed when an irritant enters the oyster or we have the host and it starts to cover itself, it starts to secrete nacre. Now mother of pearl is made of two components, one is a natural glue called calculus that holds everything together and the second is what they call calcium carbonate in the form of a mineral called aragonite, all these little miniature crystals are laid layer by layer with that natural glue and it keeps coding and coding and eventually, given enough time, the pearl begins to grow and reaches a quite considerable shape and form, most gems, however, are a gift from the earth.

Precious gems such as sapphires, rubies and diamonds are found in all three types of rocks: igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. Almost all gemstones have some type of matrix in which they are formed, for example. Emeralds are usually found in pegmatite sand, so you will see emerald crystals form just outside that host rock. Igneous rocks such as granite and basalt form when a molten rock called magma rises from within the Earth's mantle. When the magma crystallizes, it forms an igneous rock if it crystallizes deep in the earth and over a long period of time. This magma will produce large crystals and form a plutonic igneous rock.

If, on the other hand, the magma reaches the surface quickly and cools relatively quickly, it can produce volcanic igneous rocks. and gemstones are found in both volcanic and plutonic igneous rocks. Rubies, sapphires, topaz, and beryl are typically found in igneous rock formations, but the best-known igneous gem matrix may be kimberlite. Historic clay is the most common type of rock produced by divers in the world. It is located in Kimberley. in deep vertical formations called pipes, kimberlite is the hardened magma of ancient volcanoes, we don't have these types of volcanoes, you know, today, the youngest one we have is 35 million years old, most of these were around 90 millions of years or even more in sedimentary age.

Rocks form at or near the surface as sediments created by erosion face each other over time, the pressure compressing sand, mud and gravel, consolidating them into Rock Jim. Sedimentary rocks found within sedimentary rocks include turquoise agates, amethysts, and opals, gemstones that form in the sedimentary environment. He had to learn to do much with water; opal, for example, is formed by the precipitation of silica from groundwater circulating through rocks. Metamorphic rocks are rocks that have been modified by the heat and pressure of movements within the Earth's crust, as this happens with gems such as emeralds and garnets can grow within rocks.

Garnets are common in metamorphic processes that They take place in vast areas where the pressure in a specific direction can be considerable, there are other types of metamorphic rocks that form through contact metamorphism and there is usually a transfer of material from the igneous body that helps grow new crystals, For example, emeralds, as a result, emeralds are relatively rare and fine ones are concentrated in only a few places in the world. Garnets formed by the immense pressures associated with mountain building are one of the most widely distributed gems found throughout the world. and known by names like pie rope tsavorite and spessartite, they come in a wide variety of colors, some rarer than others, not just the deep dark red garnet that most people think of first when they think of the stone. birthplace of January, but also the intense, incredibly fiery deep green garnet. orange garnet colorless garnet brown garnet yellow garnet from deep purple amethyst to golden brown zircon gemstones come in dazzling diversity each individual stone a reflection of the unique conditions required to produce them gems are minerals and minerals grow only when the conditions for its growth are suitable if the conditions change, then the mineral changes, slight variations and conditions also leave telltale fingerprints in the form of characteristic small inclusions found within the stone, these inclusions often allow the gemologist to identify a stone and trace its country of origin or even extract the best colors, countless are produced by the mines in Colombia that she exploited and the Moussa mine in the Shiva mine can also find pyrite as an inclusion, while calcite crystals in the form of rhombohedron may be well in the mousou mine, so it is possible to know the origin of the emerald by looking in some cases at the inclusions, however, a jeweler's loupe or a microscope is not needed to determine the origin of the stone .

Certain gems, like this brilliant blue tanzanite, are so rare that they have only been found in one place. The sequence of events is created solely in tanzanite. It occurred in a small strip at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, what they call mere Lonnie Hills and which is only about six kilometers long and about two kilometers wide. Until now they have not found another source of tanzanite in the entire world, so there it is the hidden knight. an unusual emerald green variety of the Jemaine mineral spa. It can occur in a pale green and is found in many parts of the world in a very pale green.

The deep green is rare and unique. The deep green hidden in the night is so unique that it has even earned itself a place on the map that has just been found in a place in the world, that is northern Kerala and by a strange coincidence of geology and chemistry, the deposit which produces this unique emerald colored gem also produces real emeralds to have. this deep green here tonight forming feet away from a rare chrome rich emerald crystal two totally different gem materials in virtually the same color but they crystallize differently their chemical composition is different and their optical qualities are different simply gemstones However, they are formed when rocks are eroded by wind and water.

Gemstones often erode out of their original matrix. These fragments are easily taken up by rivers or the ocean and transported as sediment; Eventually, as the water subsides, the heavy gems will settle to the bottom. The rough gems found in depositsAlluvial mining is usually of high quality and is easily recovered; in fact, alluvial mining is the oldest method of extracting gemstones. It's a method that extends back to recorded history, among the rarest objects on Earth, gemstones are a hard-to-find treasure. Seekers like these emerald hunters in North Carolina's hidden night often look for what are called indicator minerals, more common and less valuable than the gemstones typically found. in association with the desired gem we look for associated minerals like its pyrites its tourmaline its root tools and all the pits which is a felspar type crystal we look for the entire combination of minerals here and then we know that we are in an area that has potential for emeralds, so It is a matter of digging or drilling to determine if the desired gem is in a marketable quantity.

Opal miners in the Australian town of Coober Pedy spend days drilling core samples in search of precious opals with a telltale opalescent sheen as exploratory or called grass really and if we cut some traces or some OPA of reasonable thickness, we open up alluvial finds which can also take an experienced prospector upstream to the primary deposit of gemstones, for example, small quantities of alluvial diamonds had been mined in Australia since the late 19th century, but this was not the case. Until the 1970s, a company called CRA located the ancient volcanic source of the gemstones simply by good luck.

CRA discovered diamonds released in stream sediments in Smoke Creek and at the time they only knew that the diamonds actually came from upstream. and then they followed that trend to what we know today as the argyle pipe. The amount of luck involved in some gem discoveries is downright legendary, for example—although it has been less than four decades since tanzanite was first found in 1967, its origins are already shrouded in mystery and folklore. It is a new gemstone, very new compared to sapphires and rubies that have been around for thousands of years. Tanzanite may be a new gemstone but in crude form it has been around for millions of years a seemingly worthless rock that covers the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro when you see it this original shape is a bit ugly have you ever seen a kind of bottle of coca rough deep greenish brown color is just a strange color because natural blue tanzanite is extremely rare, intense heat, however, will turn that previously ugly stone into a deep translucent violet blue, but thousands of years passed and supposedly a chance storm before a Maasai shepherd stumbled upon the secret of the story circulating in Tanzania. when the rays have gently provided the heat necessary to alter the color and what they are saying is that when the storm came, someone came after and saw the material change and oh my goodness it is a beautiful violet blue color.

Mining tanzanite was initially a simple matter of collecting stones scattered across the hillsides, but the search soon went underground. When they got there, you can literally pick up the crystals from the ground. It was incredible now that they are going down to more than 300 to 400 meters. Extraction methods vary depending on the type and wealth of the deposit. The wealth of the country where the deposit occurs can also be a factor in poor third world countries. Many alluvial deposits are worked as they have been for centuries with a shovel and a sieve at the water's edge if I have ever seen people looking for gold.

It's more or less the same. The Pantha gemstone in wealthy Western nations. Mining rich alluvial deposits can be very mecha. Australia's crystal mining company uses modern heavy machinery to unearth alluvial sapphires buried in ancient dry river beds. of the continent gem field region that we have drilled at the beginning to know approximately where the sapphire deposit is, we have to remove the overburden and then we escalate the capital laundering out of the pits which of course is transported behind us . Here, where the washing plant is located, modern hard rock mining to recover gemstones from the original matrix is ​​typically carried out on an equally massive scale in this open pit mine high in the mountains of the Urías de Mena region In Brazil, workers use bulldozers to break up rock containing imperial topaz and then a crane and dragline bucket transport the topaz-bearing measures to the top of the mine for sorting.

It is currently the only mine in the world where we can obtain Topaz Jack. The others are insignificant. Where 95 to 98% of the topaz in the world comes from. These tubes of mined diamonds are mined on an even larger scale. Australia's Argyle Mine, currently the world's largest diamond producer, employs a small army of highly trained technicians to operate state-of-the-art machinery worth hundreds of millions of dollars. aligning ourselves with the best team using the best knowledge and experience that exists in the world therefore makes our operation much more efficient and much safer because we use the latest equipment and the latest techniques at the other end of the process.

The specter is the tanzanite mines in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro. They use picks, shovels, they have wooden ladders, they are made from scrap wood and are nailed together. These types of rock sometimes go down a few hundred feet into a completely dark hole. On this wooden ladder I looked at I said, "Wow, when it comes to technology, there's really only one thing that separates the Maasai tribesmen, their techniques and those used in the ancient and legendary mines of King Solomon, dynamite for the night, which is really surprising when you get back to the hotel. You will start to hear a rumble in the background and what you are and sounds like massive thunder.

In reality, it's all the miners sending their loads underground. They do it after the mines are cleared. They place the charges every time they go out. They start having these explosions one after another and it sounds like a roar of thunder throughout the field and then they continue sometimes for hours, whether the digging is done with bare hands or with heavy machinery, one thing remains constant, they move much land. just to find a few small pieces of crystal here and there, for example, on average it is necessary to process a large volume of kimberlite, perhaps hundreds of tons of kimberlite to obtain one carat of diamond and of that volume of diamonds only a quarter.

Gem quality for the Australian opal miners in Coober Pedy is a simple matter, using methods that miners have employed for millennia, you simply get the bags and then you go home, the buyer comes and then mines the other table and this is once the stones have been unearthed. They are one step closer to the consumer, but the journey is far from over. The gems are still in their raw state and have to be sorted and separated in the imperial topaz mines of Brazil. Excavators can dig, but processing is still done by hand. crushed and washed or thrown onto a conveyor belt where workers pick out the topaz so that we can get one carat of gem here in the mine, we need to remove two cubic meters of soil from the mine meanwhile in Australia crystal mining company, The raw sapphire is sorted and processed by purely mechanical means, from there it goes along the conveyor belt to the problem inside the trommel, there are large jets of high pressure water that hit the material, breaking up the clay pieces and cleaning everything.

The material when it comes out of the air goes through what we call a pulsator which is powered by water pressure with diaphragms at the ends and as it pulsates the material flows out the top and of course the sample has an Einstein which is heavier. They sink to the bottom the iron stone is removed with a magnetic separator leaving the sapphires some as small as a millimeter wide i.e. one hundred steps per carat, which are mainly used in watches in Switzerland to remove rough diamonds from the ore crushed Australia's Argyle Mine uses an even more sophisticated machine called a photomultiplier, there are X-ray machines that spray rocks with X-rays from all sides when a diamond sees the , this thing just shines like crazy when the photomultiplier tubes see visible light, they initiate the blast of air that launches the diamond material into the concentrate stream and the whole material is discarded by gravity into a waste stream, whether the work Whether it is done with tiny gem, the stones are ready to be graded, cut and polished for the wholesale market the market value of a gemstone is based on what is commonly called the four C's carat weight clarity color and cut each of them has a impact on the beauty of the stone the desirability of the stone the rarity of the stone and therefore the price of the stone weight in carats the first of the four criteria measures the mass of the stone one carat is exactly 200 milligrams carats does not mean size does not mean how big it is it means what weight it is the weight of the diamond in size cannot be equated with colored gemstones The overall size of a one carat stone can vary greatly depending on the relative density of different gems.

The actual weight of a diamond, for example, is lighter than ruby ​​and sapphire and heavier than an emerald, so if you had three stones, they would all weigh one carat each. carat would be a one carat emerald and a one carat diamond and they were all cut in exactly the same shape and in the same proportions, the ruby ​​or sapphire would look almost 25% smaller than the diamond and the emerald would look larger bigger than diamond. It is a measure of the internal characteristics of a gem called inclusions. They can be microscopic crystals from some other Jim.

They can be small gas bubbles. They can be stress fractures. They can be a lot of really interesting things. You can get an imperfect diamond that could have a sapphire embedded in it. , what I've seen and their gorgeous diamonds are graded on a twelve-point sliding scale from flawless to included, but for colored gemstones it's almost unheard of to find a stone that can be considered flawless. People understand diamonds and they don't. They don't expect to see anything with their eyes in the diamond, so they expect the same characteristic, colored gemstones and it simply doesn't exist in the world of colored gemstones.

The color itself results from the presence of trace elements, so from the beginning As a result, we will have more inclusions. Colored stones are held to different clarity standards than diamonds. There is a very precise grading system with colored gemstones. There is no universally accepted grading system and each category of gemstone is different in terms of what it is. generally acceptable when judging clarity, colored gems fall into three broad categories, in category one, those gems are formed under the mildest geological conditions, you don't expect to see something with the naked eye, then there is category two, They form under more difficult geological conditions.

It is not at all unusual to see minor things with the naked eye. The third category of colored gemstones are formed under the most violent geological conditions, therefore they are more likely to have cracks and other features easily visible to the naked eye and mold is the classic example of this. and in fact, when you see a large deep green emerald and you don't see anything with the naked eye, the first thing people wonder, I wonder if it is real because we are so used to the fact that Emals have inclusions that are usually Typically visible, the more inclusions there are in a stone, the lower the price, but these small imperfections would also give each individual gem its own distinctive personality.

New York City's great Fifth Avenue jeweler, Harry Winston, would describe the emerald inclusions as a garden and use the French word his right there in the garden, it sounded so romantic, so he made this feature a plus . The third seed color may seem self-explanatory, but it actually encompasses a wide range of characteristics. The color of a gemstone is given by three parameters the essential hue the impression of the bali color we get the hue how light or how dark that color can be and the saturation how Bibbit or pure the color a gemstone will be. more valuable the purer the color, but pure color like perfect clarity is a standard that nature rarely achieves.

There is no pure spectral green or pure spectral red in nature or blue. Color is always modified by some other color, for example, when we think of rubies, we may think of purplish red rubies. or some are more slightly Ranji red, more intense red when we thinkin blue sapphires, some of the blues have a slight green component to the blue, some have a slight purple component to the blue, some are very close to a pure blue, but none are. absolutely pure blue no stone is pure green, so you always have to judge the modifier how much the color is altered by the presence of another color the color of a stone is not always consistent or nature does not simply blow the color evenly on an entire stone, so you should also evaluate something called zoning or color distribution.

Some gems are more likely to have colorless areas. Sapphires, an amethyst is a citrine, some gems can also combine more than one different color in a single crystal called multiple coloring. The phenomenon is common in many different varieties of tourmaline with some examples showing up to 15 different colors. The gem fields region of Australia also produces an unusual multicolored sapphire. A unique part of this sapphire deposit here in central Queensland is that we have every color you can think of. it's purple, we don't get much, you know, all the beautiful greens and yellows and what we call party color, which is a sapphire that's kind of half blue and half yellow, whether it's a rich red ruby ​​or a stunning blue tanzanite .

The right color for the consumer is largely a matter of personal taste, but before purchasing be sure to look at the stone under different types of light because the light environment can greatly affect the appearance of colored gemstones. Fluorescent lighting. The light itself is very heavy on the consumer. violet blue extreme and there is no orange red component in the light which will affect blue stones and affect red stones. Red stones often have an adverse effect, so you have to ask yourself: are you using this all the time? Are you using it only at night, do you listen to it mainly during the day?

What type of lighting are you likely to use it in? Look at the color of that stone in that kind of light and make sure you like it. The phortse cut represents the next important stage in a gemstone journey from formation to the final product and since the vast majority of gems are cut in a few centers around the world, the cut often accounts for most of the mileage. Real on a stone journey, many of the semi-precious gemstones are cut in China. and in India there are many sapphires and rubies that are cut in Thailand, most of the diamonds, depending on their size and quality, are cut in one of the few places in the world.

India will take care of many of the small diamonds, Mele. labor intensive diamonds Israel handles many of the fancy cut diamonds Belgium handles the larger small diamonds and New York typically handles the larger diamonds China has been really promising in terms of ease of diamond cutting Wherever the work is done, the way a gem is cut is usually dictated by the geometry of the stone, often gemstones will be cut according to the crystal structure; In other words, we want to keep as much weight as possible on that piece of stone. On that gemstone that is going to hold the most value, for example, emeralds are usually cut in an emerald cut, particularly the Colombian emerald because it grows in a long crystal, so they will cut it in a square or rectangular format to keep the Most of the weight falls on your sapphires and rubies because of the way the raw look is produced, they are usually cut in what we call a cushion cut which is a kind of shadowy square with rounded corners.

However, the geometry of the rough appearance is not the only thing that a skilled cutter takes into account. Taking into account how a stone is cut can often enhance gemstones, other defining characteristics, particularly color, people who are expert cutters cut to maximize color and beauty of color, so if the basic crystal rough It's a little light, you can cut the stone a little. deeper, a little more weight at the bottom to intensify that color, so that it ends up with a deeper color. Ruby, can show a brighter red in one direction and a paler pink in the other direction, so it depends on the skill of the cutter to orient himself.

To show off the best color, a skillful cut can even trick the eye as to size. I've seen rubies and sapphires, for example, where you can have a 2 carat stone here and a 1 carat stone here and you can ask. the consumer, which is the biggest, and everyone will say 1 carat because the one carat was cut shallower, the 2 carat was cut deeper, it really depends on a person's experience and some of them have a lifetime of experience carving just that precious stone. whether it's a ruby ​​or a garnet, they cut that stone year after year and you find that they have a great ability to look at a rough piece and determine which shape will be the best and will produce the best color, the best clarity and However, in the stone more beautiful you will come out of them, cutting is not the only way to enhance the beauty value of a gemstone.

Over the centuries, man has developed a wide variety of traditional and high-tech methods to improve stone clarity. Color One of the oldest methods of gem enhancement dates back to the time of the pharaohs using a technique that is still used today, the ancient Egyptians discovered that by rubbing emeralds with oil and demonstrated both their beauty and durability, the emerald It has been routinely oiled for centuries. They are prone to small fractures when light passes through them and hits them and scatters. It can cause whitish areas throughout the stone. By placing a collarless oil in those crevices, you provide a medium for light to now travel through, so you remove that sufficient amount of whitish.

A centuries-old technique detailed in ancient Indian manuscripts applies searing heat to sapphires and rubies in Sri Lanka. It has been an ancient tradition to take some of this raw sapphire and ruby ​​and put them in coconut shells and throw them into the fire, the flames not only enhance the color of the stones, the heat can also make the stone look brighter by raising it to 1700 degrees or higher, you will actually find that often it will not only improve the color of that gemstone by removing the secondary color, but it will also improve the clarity, as well as some of that silkiness or cloudiness, actually melts or disappears there.

Virtually all rubies and sapphires sold in most jewelry stores for decades have been subjected to this routine heating process to enhance the color of other gems that normally undergo heat treatments. zircon, aquamarine and tanzanite. Newer methods use lasers or even radiation to improve color clarity. Bombarding the gemstone with particles is the main way the gemstone is altered. All gemstones that enter the United States market are regulated by the government and if a gemstone is irradiated then it needs to go through this recovery period where it is no longer a danger to us. High-tech processing techniques and modern mining methods have greatly increased the supply of gems, which in many cases has also reduced their price.

The result has transformed the gems. a rare luxury that only the rich could afford in something that millions of middle-class consumers can enjoy. There is great demand, especially global demand. If you look at the burgeoning middle classes in China and India, for example, there are many people who want gemstones. Meeting that growing demand Seekers and buyers scoured the world in search of new sources of gems. The search reaches all continents. No place is too far or too remote. When we went to Vietnam, they said, "Okay, do you want to go to the mines?" We said yeah, well.

It was a car ride until the road ended and then when the road ended we got on motorcycles and I got back on motorcycles and then we drove over little bridges, streams through hills and rocks and everything else; We could no longer drive a motorcycle at that time. We got to the mountain and you know, we climbed to the top, that took hours, no, so I wasn't in shape for that by any means, but would I do it again? Absolutely not, because you go to the source, but never. -Finishing the gem hunt is, in many ways, a race against time.

There are many gemstones in Brazil, Madagascar, China and other places in the world that produce great quality stones, but it is not a bottomless pit, as mine has a pocket there. and it means that when that certain amount of material is exhausted, the demand for certain gems so exceeded the supply that if we had to depend on what the mines produced in any quality, no one today would use sapphires or blue rubies, fortunately. Science and technology have increased the supply of colored gems. Many of the gems sold today do not begin their journey at great depths, but instead begin in a laboratory.

Lab-grown gem crystals are known as synthetic, they are available in a variety of colors and are used in a variety of applications Synthetic stones generally cost much less than stones found in nature, they are not, however However, they are fakes, a synthetic diamond or colored gem is physically and chemically identical to the one created by nature, the chemicals used are identical, the stone is essentially the same except in a synthetic it is created in a laboratory it can be produced in Mass factors can be controlled versus that produced by nature Most synthetic gems are produced using one of two techniques, both developed in the late 19th century The flow method was developed by French chemist Edmund Frame II in 1877 Although it was not commercially available until the mid-1900s, when gemstones were grown using the flux process, another material was used to reduce the point at which nutrients would enter the formation of the gems.

Synthetics are melted and that material is called flux commonly used to create synthetic emeralds and diamonds. The chemical ingredients are melted at very high pressures in a platinum crucible when the molten material cools, crystals will form which repeat over and over again, the process can produce large stones. Fluxing techniques produce the most expensive type of synthetics because They are more like the way nature works. The resulting diamonds and emeralds appear identical to natural stones, but there are differences in the way they are grown and those differences leave telltale signs, such as microscopic ones. Traces of the flux will appear as inclusions in the stone within a synthetic emerald form through the fluxing process.

This will live as platinum platelets inside the emeralds. The second method of making synthetic stones. Flame fusion also leaves telltale signs that can be easily detected by a trained gemologist. Developed by French chemist Auguste Voronoi, the process is primarily used to produce synthetic sapphire and ruby, as it drops a powdered oxide and chemical components through a very hot flame onto a rotating rod as it passes through the flame, melts and hits the recrystallized surface. actually as it cools on the rod it hardens and turns into ruby ​​or sapphire for example these bulls as they are known grow quickly and can be quite large they are actually very inexpensive and are used for costume jewelery , mainly under a microscope or a 10x magnifying glass.

The synthetic origin is easily evident, curved patterns can be seen. Curved stripes are common in Ruby, they look like grooves in a disk or curved bands of color that can be seen in the fusion of flames. Blue Sapphire, in addition to rubies and sapphires, synthetic spinel can also be made using the Flame Fusion Process Spinel comes in all colors, almost all colors and became one of the most used stones to simulate other stones precious The latest synthetic gems can easily fool the untrained eye, but scientists have also developed the means to detect them. While modern technology can recreate the beauty and brilliance of a gemstone, no laboratory can capture the mystery or romance of the real thing.

That's the whole package around it, that sense of adventure really makes the value of that gemstone that much higher, in other words, the secret to the timeless appeal of rare stones is not just the gem, but also the journey. that runs.