Mineralogist Answers Gemstone Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED

I'm Gabriella farfan curator of gems and minerals at the Smithsonian let's answer some questions from the internet this is Gem [Music] support at oep asks I have a really dumb question that I'm too scared to ask in class what's the difference between rocks and minerals there's nothing in a rock that is not a mineral rocks are actually made up of minerals this is called Granite if you look closely at this rock you'll notice that it has grains of different colors these are individual crystals of different minerals contained in this Granite are the mineral quartz the mineral Feld Spar and the mineral biotite and musite which is also known as micia all minerals are crystals by definition in this case this mineral is called quartz what is a gem a gem stone is a mineral crystal that has been cut and faceted by an artist so this would be the natural shape of a crystal and it can eventually be cut and Polished into a gemstone at Jeb blackwat asks question what's the difference between rubies emeralds sapphires Etc rubies and sapphires are the same exact mineral the mineral is called corundum and it is made up of aluminum and oxygen the only difference between Ruby and Sapphire is that the gem industry designated the color red for rubies every other color of the rainbow is called Sapphire you also asked about emeralds Emerald is a variety of the mineral Barrel many minerals get their colors from different Trace element impurities this one has chromium 3+ impurities on a very Trace scale and this one has iron impurities to make it blue at seamster Heidi asks what's the most unusual gemstone you've ever heard of I need some inspiration I have a treat for you this is a mineral sodalite the variety name is called hackmanite and hackmanit are very special because they have a color property called tenebrescence which happens when we shine a UV light on it you'll see that the stones are now glowing in orange yellow color we're going to charge them up a little bit orange stone is from mon St hilir a very famous mine in Quebec and the yellow stone is from Afghanistan okay let's get the lights back on now look at how the color of these Stones has changed a tiny bit of sulfur gives it this color effect and now if we add some light to them they'll go back to their original colorless versions they're just reflecting all of the light back to us at Lee Perez Ray asks where does The Rock Dwayne Johnson right on the Mo's scale well Dwayne The Rock Johnson is off the scale because he's a cool human but his bones are actually made of Bio appetite which is a mineral with a moose hardness of five the mo hardness scale is a scale that we use to compare mineral hardness so when I say hardness I'm actually referring to the scratch ability of a mineral not how tough it is the mineral talc has a moose hardness scale of one at the Other Extreme of the mo hardness scale diamond is number 10 the Moose hardness scale is also a logarithmic scale which means that the difference between 1 and two on the scale is 10 times so so diamond is 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 and so on times harder than the mineral talc the reason why hardness is so important for gemstones that are used in jewelry is that something like a diamond is very difficult to scratch so if you're wearing it every day in a ring it's much less likely to turn dull over time because it will not build up scratches whereas diamonds are the hardest on the Mo's hardness scale which means scratch ability Jade is the most difficult to break break so it is the toughest mineral at Pete Peters 21 asks if diamonds are the hardest substance in the world how do they cut diamonds in order to cut a diamond you need to use other diamonds they would have to take a rotating plate that we call a lap and cover it in Diamond powder they'll start with a very coarse grit of powder and eventually they get to finer and finer grits to create the polished effect this is called the Kimberly diamond it's over 55 karats in weight and it originated from South Africa and was gifted to the Smithsonian in 2019 this would be a rectangular or emerald cut you may also refer to it as a baguette cut and it's very special because most diamonds are cut in a round brilliant shape which means that it's very good at disguising flaws light comes into the diamond bounces around the facets and comes back out to your eye in this case the light light comes in it bounces a little bit but you can see that there are no flaws in this diamond at sakassi asks how is a diamond's Purity graded the four C's which stands for its color its Clarity its cut and its carrot weight there are many gemological institutes that can actually give your diamond a grade they'll look to see if it has any inclusions or impurities in the diamond such as another mineral that's stuck inside of the crystal or if it has any other flaws like a crack then they'll look at the color when grading colorless diamonds people tend to prefer that there not be traces of yellow the yellow is due to small amounts of nitrogen substituting into the carbon structure of the diamond crystal however if there's a lot of nitrogen in the crystal it will turn more of a brilliant yellow color and that's actually considered a good thing we call this a fancy color Diamond they'll also look at how much it weighs so the carrot weight which is a fifth of a gram they'll also then judge the cut of the stone so is it a round brilliant is it a pear shape is it a mares cut like an eye shape a mares cut is an interesting cut that was more popular in the 80s at@ kxu asks do synthetic SL cultured diamonds also last forever synthetic diamonds are chemically and crystallographically speaking the same as naturally formed diamonds so they're also number 10 on the mo hardness scale they have the same Optical properties the same thermal properties and conductivity properties they were just not formed through geological processes they were formed in a laboratory unfortunately for all of us diamonds will not last forever because diamonds are formed at very high pressures and temperatures so at Earth's surface conditions they are not the stable form of carbon graphite is the stable mineral at surface conditions so millions of years from now maybe even longer your diamonds will turn into graphite at bloodied Roman asks yo they made Minecraft obsidian into a real thing sorry to break it to you but obsidian was there first here's a piece of obsidian an obsidian is actually natural volcanic glass so it's not a mineral because it does not have a crystal structure this obsidian glass has the same chemical composition to our Granite they were magmas that formed underneath the surface of our planet but this one ended up nucleating and growing crystals whereas this one never had the chance obsidian also has an anthropological connection because it was used by prehistoric humans because it breaks very easily and forms these conoidal fractures which can be very sharp and they were used to make arrow heads and other knives at rocks by K1 asks what is the biggest difference between fool's gold and real gold this is real gold gold is a mineral and it has this beautiful golden color in contrast this is called Fool's Gold the proper name is pyate and it's composed of iron sulfide so it's not actually gold at all but it also has this beautiful golden luster but if we hold them side by side you'll see that they're actually quite different in color they both have the same cubic structure for their crystal structure this one just happened to form more edal crystals more blocky obvious crystals this one on an atomic scale would still be crystallin you just can't see the crystals with your naked eye at Kyo B badaro asks do we theoretically know every mineral in the universe we currently know of over 5,000 mineral species on our planet today as for the whole universe I cannot say but theoretically speaking we know that the combinations of different elements in the periodic table could account for approximately 9,000 so we still have a ways to go to keep finding those minerals we're going to need some more minerology in the future to help us look for them at Ben king1 asks where do the minerals in your mobile phone come from there are approximately 65 elements that are necessary to make your cell phone run many of them are considered to be Rare Earth elements that often times come in what we call critical minerals for example one of these minerals would be called spine and this mineral happens to have a lot of lithium in it and lithium is going to be very important for those lithium ion batteries we mine spyine from rocks called pegmatites and pegmatites are really really great at concentrating what we call these incompatible elements these are elements that are either too small like lithium or too big like uranium that they don't like to fit in your average Crystal structures pegmatite deposits occur across the globe but they tend to be concentrated in places like Brazil we even have some pegmatites here in the United States up in Maine or in California at the Inspira asks what is the most cursed Diamond historically people love the idea of attaching a curse or a good story to a famous diamond and what more famous Diamond than the Hope Diamond which resides here at our national museum of natural history in the early 1900s the Hope Diamond was bought and sold many times and all of its owners kept losing their money in having to sell this diamond and its last private owner Evelyn Walsh mlan had a rather tragic life that befell her family and herself so this idea of the curse just kept building and building with a Hope Diamond but today when we think about the Hope Diamond we actually think of it as a blessing because it has become the Cornerstone of our national gem collection at Phil Brown 62 asks how do crystals form different minerals require different temperature or pressure conditions in order to build their crystals they also need some kind of fluid in order for those necessary ingredients to get to the right place crystals are formed of atoms and so if you have consistent ingredients in the case of this amethyst which is a variety of quarts the ingredients would be silicon and oxygen the silicon and oxygen atoms will arrange themselves in a repeating specific pattern in this case it will make a hexagonal cryst Crystal system and if you keep adding atoms to this tessellation you will eventually end up with a crystal that you can see with the naked eye at Laura oper asks are pearls considered to be minerals since their origin is organic pearls are technically not minerals because they are formed through organic processes and part of the definition of a mineral is that it has to form inorganically however I'm actually a biom minerology so I do study minerals that are formed form Med through biological processes and in the case of pearls what we're looking at is the mineral aragonite or calcium carbonate so what happens is that the organism in this case a Pearl Oyster naturally forms this layer of naker or mother of pearl inside of its shell and if a piece of debris gets stuck inside of its organism as it's living it becomes irritated and it tries to cover that with the same naker that we call a pearl another example of a bio mineral would be your bones you are in fact a biomineralizing organism where your bones are made up of Bio appetite appetite is calcium phosphate and it's also formed through geological processes at bracer 788 asks what does Gemmy mean we say that something is Gemmy when someone could potentially cut a gemstone out of it for example this Crystal of barrel also known as the variety Emerald is very beautiful it's rather transparent this gemstone could potentially be cut out of a crystal like this because the crystal is Gemmy in contrast this Crystal is relatively opaque which means it would be very difficult to cut a gemstone out of this Crystal at Emma Teresa J asks my friend has a moonstone parentheses orthic ring that the Jeweler told her she can't get wet is this true what's behind that crystallographically SL geochemically or is this a myth Moonstone looks something like this if you can get it wet it's not going to be harmed whatsoever now the Jeweler might have been confused with a different thing which we call Opal Opals look something like this and they are also commonly used in jewelry but they're not technically minerals Opals are mineraloids which are almost the same as minerals but they don't have a crystal structure instead Opals are composed of tiny tiny spheres made out of silica and these spheres are packed together this means that Opals are very porous and they can easily absorb water so if you're going to do your dishes maybe take your opal ring off first at Tiffy sniffs asks how are geodes formed and why are they so cool well I agree that geodes are very cool if you were to walk around in Utah and pick up a rock that looks something like this break it open you might find that it's hollow inside and that it formed a geode so geodes form when you have an open cavity and and this allows crystals to grow inside of the space this one is likely filled with the mineral called quartz or silicon dioxide this would be your most common geode that you would find if you're going to crack open geodes make sure that you wear your safety glasses Safety First at Shelby by Lynn l asks why does turquoise jewelry have to be so expensive because the gemstones that they're made from are quite rare it's very difficult first of all for the earth to create these amazing minerals and to form examples of them that are going to be large enough pretty enough in order for someone to want to make jewelry out of them the next part would be someone has to mine that stone so a miner would go to a mine such as one in Arizona find that turquoise then it has to go to a lapidary which is the person that actually cuts the stones into a cabasan which is a stone that's polished on top and usually flat on the bottom so it makes a dome shape and finally you need a jeweler that's going to take that gemstone and mount it into a piece of jewelry now the metal that is used to mount that piece of jewelry can be quite expensive in and of itself especially if it's something like gold or platinum so together you form this rather expensive piece of jewelry at lenoak asks where do rubies even come from it turns out that rubies or the mineral corundum can be found all around the world if you are interested in finding rubies in the United States you could even go to North Carolina to Ruby mines however the most precious rubies the most sought after rubies are from Burma there is an area of Muk Burma that has a huge City made up of many many thousands of people where their entire job is to find rubies in a mountain of marble at tales and kitty asks what are quote blood diamonds unfortunately minerals and gemstones often hold a lot of value per volume which means they're very small but they're very very expensive and thus they have been embroiled in conflicts and used to trade for weapons and often times can be directly linked to conflicts and death ethical sourcing is very important currently there is a process called the Kimberly process which can trace the origins of diamond crystals before they get cut and sold into jewelry so if a diamond comes into the United States without the proper certification from the Kimberly committee they get confiscated by TSA and they're actually brought here to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History so that they don't get traded out illegally at DX play asks how do you find your gems as the curator of gems and minerals myself and my team go out and Scout for new minerals that have appeared on the market recently we acquired a crystal of the mineral called sapphirine not Sapphire and it was one of my favorite Acquisitions because it happens to be the largest crystal of saffrin in the world and it came from a mine in Madagascar so those are all the questions we have today thanks for watching Gem and Mineral [Music] support

Channel: WIRED

Views: 594,712

Keywords: crystals, cursed diamonds, diamond, diamonds, earth minerals, earth science, gabriela farfan, gem, gem support, gemologist, gemology, gems, gemstone, gemstones, geodes, hope diamond, how do geodes form, how to cut a diamond, how to identify gemstones, innovation, mineral expert, mineralogist, mineralogy, minerals, precious gem, precious gems, rocks, rocks and minerals, rubies, ruby, sapphire, science & technology, smithsonian, smithsonian mineralogy, tech support, wired, wired tech support

Id: -S69LaNcrZA

Length: 17min 44sec (1064 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 04 2024