Gemstones

100+ Gems - Photos of over 100 beautiful gems ranging from the popular to the obscure.

Fire Opal is a transparent to translucent opal with a yellow, orange or red background color.

Ruby and Sapphire are the 2nd and 3rd most popular colored stones in the United States.

Pictures of Opal A collection of different types of opal from all around the world and Mars too!

Diamond A collection of photos, articles, facts, maps and graphs about diamonds.

Emerald is the most popular green gemstone in the United States and most of the world.

United States Gemstones Small mines in the U.S. produce a diversity of gemstones.

Amethyst - the most popular purple gem. It has a beautiful color and reasonable price.

Extraterrestrial Gems A number of materials from space are used as attractive gems.

Canadian Diamond Mines produce some of the largest and highest quality diamonds!

Green Gemstones - emerald, peridot, jade, tsavorite, chrome diopside, chrysoprase, more.

Labradorite is a feldspar gem that can produce bright flashes of iridescent color.

Ant Hill Garnets - tiny gems that ants haul to the surface and discard on their anthill. Honest!

Tumbled Stones are rocks that have been rounded, smoothed and polished in a rock tumbler.

Gaspeite is a rare green ore of nickel that has become a popular gem in southwestern jewelry.

Tourmaline - the most colorful mineral and natural gem material on Earth.

Ruby & Sapphire are gem corundums - ruby when red, sapphire when other colors.

Turquoise A blue to bluish- green gem material that has been used for over 6000 years.

Topaz is a popular birthstone and the #8 mineral in the Mohs Hardness Scale.

Strontium Titanate - lab created diamond simulant with fire much stronger than diamond.

Green Diamonds - one of rarest and most valuable diamond colors.

Ethiopian Opal - The new opal heavyweight that might give Australia a run.

Geodes look like ordinary rocks on the outside but can be spectacular inside!

Jade has been used as a gemstone and a tool-making material for for 1000s of years.

Ammolite is a fossil and a gemstone. It is shell material from fossil ammonites.

Blood Diamonds Illegally-traded diamonds that may have been stolen or used to fund conflict.

Blue Gemstones - Most people shopping for a colored stone are looking for something blue.

Garnet is best known as a red gemstone. It occurs in any color and has many industrial uses.

Organic Gems are gems formed from plant or animal materials.

Tanzanite was unknown until a few decades ago but it has erupted into wide popularity.

Lapis Lazuli - a metamorphic rock and the most popular blue opaque gemstone in history.

Sunstone A feldspar with aventurescence caused by tiny copper inclusions.

You Can Be A Diamond Miner! At the Crater of Diamonds mine you can keep what you find.

Star Garnets are found in only a few locations worldwide. They are the state gems of Idaho.

Peridot is the gem variety of olivine. Derived from the mantle and rarely from meteorites.

Petrified Wood is a fossilized wood that often serves as a colorful gem material.

Diamonds Do Not Form From Coal Learn several reasons why the coal origin is false.

Goldstone is a colorful man-made glass that is full of highly-reflective metallic inclusions.

Gem Silica is a blue chalcedony colored by copper. It is the rarest and most valuable chalcedony.

Zircon is a popular and colorful gem with fire and brightness that rivals diamond.

Cabochons A photo gallery of cabochon gemstones from around the world.

Bloodstone is a dark green jasper with a splatter of red color that looks like blood.

Jet is a black organic gem material that forms from well-preserved woody material.

Malachite has served as a gem material, pigment and ore of copper for thousands of years.

Rock Tumblers - All about rock tumblers and rock tumbling. Read before you buy a tumbler.

US Diamond Mines Where are diamonds mined in the United States?

Geology of Gems - The first comprehensive book on the geology of gem deposits.

Ametrine is a bicolor quartz (amethyst + citrine) and a gemstone of growing popularity.

Spinel The gemstone that was confused with ruby and sapphire for over 1000 years.

Red Beryl is one of the rarest gems. Small amounts are mined at one locality in Utah.

Aventurine - a translucent quartz with reflective inclusions that cause aventurescence.

Gem Mineral Collections are a great way to learn about gem materials. Get yours.

Rose Quartz is the name used for specimens of translucent quartz with a pink color.

Kyanite is a metamorphic mineral used to make porcelain, abrasive products and gems.

Chrysoprase - The translucent green variety of chalcedony that is colored by nickel.

Spectacular Diamonds have an exceptional size, color, clarity, crystal form or other property.

Gemstones of the World : A book by Robert Schumann. Over one million copies sold.

Rhodochrosite : a manganese mineral used as an ore, a pink gem and an ornamental stone.

Apatite produces gemstones with vivid colors and is popular with collectors.

Benitoite - Geology of the State Gem of California - USGS report from 1911.

Spodumene is an ore of lithium and the mineral of the gems kunzite and hiddenite.

Azurite is a vivid blue copper mineral that can be cut into beautiful cabochon gems.

Tiffany Stone is a rare purple, blue and white rock, mined in Utah, and used as a gem.

Scapolite can be a pretty faceted stone or a translucent cab with cats-eye effects.

Facts About Diamonds You are a diamond expert if you know all of these!

Beryl - the mineral of emerald, aquamarine, morganite, heliodor, goshenite, and more.

Hardness Picks - Mohs hardness testing with precise and easy-to-use hardness picks.

U.S. Gemstone Production is very low compared to the U.S. being the largest consumer.

Chrome Diopside is a green gemstone that is often used as an alternative stone for emerald.

Azurmalachite is a mixture of malachite and azurite. It can be a beautiful blue and green gem.

Iolite is the gem variety of the mineral cordierite. An alternative to sapphire and tanzanite.

Iris Agate can produce a rainbow of colors when light passes between its thin bands.

Chatoyant Gems look like the eye of a cat. They have a line of light that moves across the gem.

Unakite A gem material composed of green epidote and pink orthoclase.

Diamonds are mined in many countries and their relative importance changes frequently.

Rhodonite is a pink manganese silicate used as a gemstone, an ornamental stone and an ore.

Moldavite is a gem material born about 15 million years ago when a pair of asteroids struck Europe.

Zoisite is a diverse gem. Tanzanite, thulite and anyolite are three of its gem varieties.

Maw Sit Sit is a metamorphic rock and a gem material that was once thought be jade.

Fancy Sapphires are gem corundums of any color other than red, blue or colorless.

Synthetic Diamonds of spectacular quality are now being produced in labs.

Brown Diamonds are growing in popularity and are frequently seen in fashion jewelry.

Geology Tools - Rock hammers, field bags, hand lenses, maps, hardness picks, gold pans.

Helenite is a man-made glass produced by fusing ash from the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption.

Titanite is also known as sphene. It is a minor source of titanium and a minor gem.

Chrysoberyl an extreme gem. Its hardness is 8.5, can display chatoyance or color-change.

Serpentine - a group of metamorphic minerals used as gems and architectural stone.

Turritella Agate is a brown agate containing snail fossils from the Green River Formation.

K2 Granite is a white granite with blue orbs of azurite. It is a new gem material from Pakistan.

Smoky Quartz - A brown color-variety of the mineral quartz often cut as a gem.

Peanut Wood? Yes! It is a very interesting gem material found in Western Australia.

Looking Into the Mysteries of Gems and exploring their hidden secrets with a microscope.

Petrified Palm is often confused with petrified wood. It is a distinctly different material.

Andalusite - exhibits strong pleochroism and often has sets of oriented inclusions.

Heliodor is a yellow, greenish-yellow or golden yellow beryl used as a gem.

Prasiolite is amethyst that has been heat-treated to a leek-green color.

Variscite is a yellowish green to bluish green mineral. It is similar to turquoise and cut as a gem.

Polka Dot Agate - a translucent blue to white agate with a suspension of colorful dots.