GEMSTONES – Sparkling beautiful minerals !!!

A gemstone is a piece of mineral crystal which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewellery or other adornments.

Most gemstones are hard, but some soft minerals are used in jewellery because of their lustre or other physical properties that have aesthetic value. Let’s understand the characteristic of a few gemstones popularly used in jewellery.

OPALS:

Tracing back the origin of the Opals, 90% of the world’s precious opals come from Australia and the rest can be found in countries like Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, Czech Republic, Ethiopia, and the USA. The Mexican Opals, in particular, has more water and is either transparent or extremely translucent.

Opals, when viewed from different angles, either when the stone is moved or the light source is moved, flashes brilliant colors. This phenomenon is known as a ‘Play Of Colours”. Opal flashes a number of colors like bright yellow, orange, green, blue, red or purple.

The Opal shown is Black or Dark body, in its rough form by Broken River Mining. Black Opals are more valuable.

CONCH PEARLS

These are non-nacreous, calcareous concretion produced by the Queen Conch Mollusk (Strombus gigas) which lives primarily in the Caribbean starting near Southern Florida and extending as far as Bahamas.

Usually, conch pearls have an elongated, oval or baroque shape, and near-round pearls are a rare specimen. The conch pearls weigh more than the oyster pearls. The size of the conch pearls can be found over 100cts with the average size being less than 3cts. It is an organic gem which exhibits a flame-like structure that can be seen with the naked eye. Prolonged exposure to sunlight can have a filling and fading effect.

Julia Roberts wore asymmetrical arrangement of 16 precious conch pearls earrings by Cindy Chao at Oscars 2019.

Certainly, PEARL is the queen of gems and the gem of Queens.

Next up in the gemstones series is the lush

PARAIBA TOURMALINE

Reminding you of the majestic bluish-green waves, the Paraiba Tourmaline is mined from the gem-rich country Brazil. Back in the day, Brazilian miners discovered a distinctive and brightly coloured variety of tourmaline in the state of Paraiba. It exudes a beautiful neon glow that undeniably captivated people.

The gem has a trace element of copper with colors ranging from striking turquoise to the vivacious blue-green, but the main feature is the incandescent glow that appears to light up the stone from within. The gem is not only rare but comes in a series of different colors like neon blue, neon green.

MOONSTONE

Just like the moonlight in the black sky, Moonstone has a perpetual shine. Majorly found in places like New Mexico, United States, Brazil, India, Germany, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Myanmar, Russia, and Tanzania. The moonstone exudes a nourishing, sensual, deeply feminine energy that can heal and bring you back to wholeness. It is known as the stone of mother moon, deep healing waters, and sacred feminine energies.

Moonstones are significantly known for their adularescence, it is an optical phenomenon that creates an appearance of billowy clouds of blue to white light with a moonlight sheen. A member of the feldspar group, it is well-known for its glowing colour that resembles the moonlight.

CORALS:

Unlike the other gemstones of mineral origin, Coral is organic and is formed by living organisms. It forms from the branching antler-like structures created from coral polyps in tropical and subtropic ocean waters. After the coral polyps die, the hardened skeletal remains are what is used as the material for the gemstone.

Majority of the corals are white in colour but can appear in a spectrum of other colors as well. The red and the orange are two popular colors that appear.

It’s great to know a little piece of history behind the gems we love to adorn and flaunt in our jewels, isn’t?

I will be back with some more gemstones in the next part. Stay tuned for more!