Aquamarine and opal Semi Precious

Posted by bobobrown on December 20th, 2018

What is aquamarine?

  Aquamarine is a beryl with a blue color like the ocean and the sky. Aqua is translated into water and marine is translated into ocean. Once a navigator would regard aquamarine as the guardian of blessing sailing, so aquamarine, whether in terms of color or function, is worthy of the name. The region rich in aquamarine in the world is mainly in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil. 

The meaning of aquamarine

  Water is the source of life. The frozen water slowly thawed in the early spring of March, so the aquamarine with the "water" attribute was designated as the birthstone of March. It symbolizes courage, courage, and wisdom. These three points are also corresponding to the navigator's troubles, fear of the unknown, and courage. At the same time, aquamarine is also a love, and everyone is blessed with their own love and marriage.

How to identify aquamarine

  Aquamarine carats are generally smaller, and the deeper the blue, the more expensive the price. The general quality Moissanite original gemstone  is not very transparent inside, there will be a small amount of white floc and the crystals will be distributed in a cluster.

What is opal?

--1. Is the gemstone with cat's eye effect the opal?

  Do not. Opal is one of the gold emeralds in mineralogy, belonging to the gold emerald mineral. Gold emerald is a bismuth-containing aluminum oxide with a chemical molecular formula of BeAl2O4, which is an orthorhombic system. The crystal form is often short column or plate.

--2. Is there only a cat's eye effect in yellow emeralds?

  NO. The cat's eye effect is an optical effect, and many gemstones produce a cat's eye effect. However, only the gold emerald cat's eye can be directly called opal. Other gemstones with cat's eye effect can't be called opal directly. You need to add the name of the gem in front of it, such as quartz cat's eye, aquamarine cat's eye cat's eye and so on.

--3. What is the cat's eye effect?

  When the gemstone is processed into a curved shape, a bright band with a certain swimming (flash or live light) appears on the curved surface, which is like the special optical effect of the slender skull of the cat's eye.

--4. Why does the gem produce a cat's eye effect?

  There are two conditions that must be met to produce a cat's eye effect:

  (1) Gems contain a large number of parallel-arranged inclusions, or gemstones consist of fibrous, long-column minerals in a certain direction. The inclusions may be gas-liquid inclusions, fibrous, needle-like crystals (such as rutile, tourmaline, etc.) or tubular, hollow (such as negative crystals, elongated bubbles, etc.) left by the crystal during growth, or A set of oriented cleavage lines in various seed crystals or gemstones.

  (2) The gemstone must be cut into a curved surface with the bottom surface parallel to the plane of the inclusion. If the two are not parallel (with a certain angle), the eyeliner position of the cat's eye is not centered or even disappears.

--5. Why does the “eyeliner” of the cat's eye gem change with the light?

  A gemstone with a cat's eye effect, as the gemstone oscillates, the "eyeliner" also oscillates accordingly, and the eyeliner moves in the direction opposite to the light source. This is because as the light source moves from the top of the gem to the side, the angle of incidence of the light increases with respect to the normal, and the angle of reflection increases. Therefore, the focal plane of the reflected light moves correspondingly, causing the eyeliner of the cat's eye to oscillate.

--6.When did people find opal?

  People have a long history of understanding and utilizing cat eyes. Ancient Sri Lanka was famous for producing golden-green cat eyes. Its finished products are not only spread in the East, but also spread all over the world. China’s understanding and use of cat eyes began in the Yuan Dynasty. At that time, it was thought that the opal was related to the cat’s death and was buried in the mountains. From the topaz preciouse gemstone , there are many different names or common names: "cat's eye", "wavestone", "lion negative" and so on.

  There is also a legend about the intimate cruelty in the opal. It is said that in the ancient Baihu Mountain of Sri Lanka, an old man with a cat is living. The old man and the cat are dependent on each other. After the cat dies, the old man is very sad. Later, the cat dreams of giving the old man. When the old man wakes up and digs the cat to watch, the cat's eyes are hard as a bead, and there is a bright band in the middle, which is very beautiful. Therefore, the old man buried a cat's eye in the Baihu Mountain. The other one was eaten, and the old man became a fairy. Later, the mountain was famous for producing cat's eye gems.

What kind of cat's eye gem is good quality?

--1. What is the quality of a good cat eye gem?

  The best cat's eye gemstones should have a clear cat's eye effect. The eyeliner (light strip) is continuous, narrow, bright, well-defined, and accurately located in the center of the gemstone without deviation. It is in sharp contrast with the background color, and the eyeliner changes with the incident light. flexible.

--2. How to evaluate a cat's eye gem?

  Before evaluating cat's eye gemstones, the first is to determine the variety of cat's eye gemstones. Among the cat's eye gemstones, the golden green cat's eye is the most precious. The stone cat's eye and the emerald cat's eye are also very rare, and most cat's eye gemstones can only belong to the middle and low grade gemstones. For a gemstone with a cat's eye effect, its quality is mainly evaluated in terms of color, transparency, weight, cut, and the degree of cat's eye effect.

  The color of the golden green cat's eye is yellowish green, honey yellow and yellowish brown, etc. It is best to have honey-like appearance and color of honey yellow, followed by light yellow green, yellow brown is lower than light yellow green, brown value is more The lower, the lowest value is the gray-blue gems. Other gemstones with cat's eye effect have various colors, but most of them have brown tones, such as taupe, blue-brown, green-brown, etc. Cat's eye gemstones are generally translucent (except for hairy cat eyes), which makes light The contrast between the belt and the body color is clearer, and the transparency affects the brightness and the degree of the cat's eye effect. The weight is also an important factor affecting the value of the cat's eye gemstone. Under the same conditions, of course, the heavier the value is.

Is the opal precious?

--1. Why are opal stones so precious?

  The preciousness of the opal comes from its rarity and beauty. Opal is mainly produced in gas-forming hydrothermal deposits and pegmatite veins. The world's most famous opal origin is in the southwestern part of Sri Lanka, such as Tranabula and Gower, and countries such as Brazil and Russia have also found opals, but they are very rare. The refractive index of the Wholesale gemstone supplier china golden emerald cat's eye is the largest of the common cat's eye varieties, and the density is also the largest. When there is a certain size, a clear 444nm strong absorption narrow band is visible under the beam splitter, which is the most precious cat's eye gem

  As the five precious stones of the same name as diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds, the appearance of opal is relatively small, because its production is very small. Globally, the production of gold emeralds is less than that of other precious stones, and there are fewer cat-eye effects. The opal stone weighing more than 10 carats has already become a treasure in the major auction venues.