The Gemstone Journey

rare wondrous romantic gems have fascinated mankind for millennia but a precious stones beauty and rarity is only a part of its story there is also adventure being of gemstone buyer it's pretty amazing that I have that experience that to travel around the world to go to these places to whether it's the mine or to the source to actually get that gemstone this violet blue tanzanite stone or this deep red ruby aren't just beautiful and valuable treasures they're also the symbolic end to an epic tale that began eons ago 50 million years ago it was deposited and all of a sudden in a year for the first one to say it the thrill of discovery is only one chapter in a quest that can cross thousands of miles and involve hundreds of man-hours sent everywhere from primitive minds to modern laboratories it is a tale that combines both traditional craftsmanship and cutting-edge technology to create the world's most timeless works of art from rough crystal to cherished heirloom from deep underground to your dresser jewelry box join us as we follow the gemstone journey [Music] hi in the mountains of southern Brazil lies the mining region of Minas Jiraiya's Mena's urias is a great producer of gems of precious stones of gems in general and the third in the world even until the present date today the miners may ride an elevator instead of climbing rickety wooden ladders but at this emerald mine and Nova era the day begins as it has for centuries with a trip deep underground a thousand feet underground the miners use power drills to punch holes in the granite face of the shaft the miners attach fuses and detonators to the dynamite then they move back a safe distance and set off the charges when the dust settles the heavy work begins hauling the Emerald bearing rock up to the surface it's hard work to keep on bending down and straightening out it's hard this part at night is not fun but freeing the stone from the rock isn't the first step towards placing and emerald on someone's finger it is actually the middle of a journey that began millions of years before what's commonly called an emerald is actually a green tinted variety of the mineral Beryl beryllium aluminum cyclo silicate to be precise all minerals and most of the gemstones are minerals the crystalline structure is an orderly pattern that causes the same motif of atoms to repeat itself in the three dimensions regularly it is a complicated process requiring just the right amount of geological energy to properly align the atoms it would take tremendous amounts of heat and pressure to actually create one of the pockets and one of the hard granite pegmatite over time a tremendously long time the Emerald will continue to grow adding new atoms on to its crystal lattice for nature a thousand years these are very short time so typically they take millions of years to grow despite being millions of years in the making most of the resulting crystals will be too small to be seen with the naked eye and even among those rare large crystals few will be considered gem quality just because it's a ruby or an emerald or sapphire or a diamond doesn't mean it's something precious or valuable there are rubies emeralds and sapphires that aren't worth 50 cents account the conditions to form gemstones that are transparent and they have beautiful color do not occur very often large well-formed crystals are also very unusual which makes this 330 carat rough emerald a rare find indeed the result of just the right combination of chemicals and pressures emeral itself is a silicate that contains 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 instance replacing the aluminum with manganese produces the exceedingly rare red barrel it looks like an emerald it's the same exact crystal structure it's the same exact type of inclusions except it's found under the certain geological conditions that produce the color red instead of green depending on what trace impurities are present Beryl can also be pink white or yellow add traces of aluminum and iron and the result is the delicate blue 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 a lot of people in the world should have still don't realize that sapphires come in so many colors they sort of think that sapphire blue rubies are red emeralds are green but as they're starting to realize a little bit now that sapphires do come in every color sapphires can be blue green purple pink orange yellow and even red although with red the stones are called rubies Ruby and Sapphire are exactly the same gem material with the exception of the trace elements that cause the color so ruby gets its red color from chromium and Sapphire gets its blue color from trace amounts of iron and titanium depending on what position it occupies in the crystalline structure of the mineral the chromium that gives Ruby a red color will cause an emerald to be green so the crystalline structure of the material also has a very significant impact in the color that we see rare pink diamonds for instance oh they're unusual color primarily to microscopic flaws within the gemstones internal structure it's not a chemical that's being caught up in the making of the diamonds the molecules and things aren't lined up and that causes a refraction of light and then you get pink rather than white diamonds white or colorless diamonds are unique in that they consist of a single element carbon but just like other gems trace impurities can radically alter a diamonds tint chemistry and geology however aren't the only sciences that can start a gemstones journey biology can also play a part there are a big number of organic gemstones such as ivory that comes from the tusks of elephants coral is also a very common gemstones produced by life jet a fossilized wood is actually a type of coal primeval forests are also the source for amber which is a fossilized tree sap true amber was found in certain regions of the world only the Baltic region for example it would wash up on the shores of the Baltic Sea as if it was been a gift from the waters but a round lustrous pearl is by far the most precious organically produced gem pearls are formed when an irritant enters the oyster or we have the host happens to be it starts coating it starts secreting nacre now nacre is made of two components one is a natural glue called calculon that binds everything together and the second one is what they call calcium carbonate in the form of a mineral called aragonite all these miniature little crystals are laid out layer by layer with that glue natural glue and it just keeps coding and coding coding and eventually given enough time that pearl starts growing and get to a pretty sizable shape and form most gems however are a gift from the earth precious gems like sapphires and rubies and diamonds are found in all three types of rock igneous sedimentary and metamorphic almost every gemstone actually has some type of a matrix that it forms on for example emeralds are usually found in pegmatite sand then you'll see that emerald crystals forming right outside of that host rock igneous rocks like granite and basalt are formed when molten rock called magma rises from within the Earth's mantle when magma crystallizes it forms an igneous rock if it crystallizes deep within the earth and over a long period of time this magma will produce large crystals and it will form a plutonic igneous rock if on the other hand the magma reaches the surface fast and it cools relatively fast it can produce a volcanic igneous rocks and gemstones occur 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 are the most common rock type that yields divers in the world is Kimberley found in deep vertical formations called pipes kimberlite is the hardened magma of ancient volcanoes we don't have this type of you know today the youngest one we have is 35 million years old most of these were somewheres around 90 million years or even greater in age sedimentary rock forms on or near the surface as sediments created by erosion pilot op one another over time pressure compresses the sand mud and gravel cementing it into Rock Jim's found within sedimentary rocks include turquoise agates amethyst and opals gemstones that form in the sedimentary environment had to learn to do a lot with water opal for example is formed by precipitation from silica out of groundwater that circulates through the rocks metamorphic rocks are rocks that have been changed by the heat and pressure of movements within the Earth's crust as this happens gems such as emeralds and garnets can grow within the rocks garnets are common in metamorphic processes that take place over vast areas where the pressure on a specific direction may be considerable there are other type of metamorphic rocks that are formed through contact metamorphism and usually there is a transfer of material from the igneous body that helps in growing new crystals for example emeralds emeralds as a result are relatively rare with fines concentrated in only a few places on the globe garnets formed by the immense pressures associated with mountain building are one of the most widely distributed gems found worldwide and known by names such as tsavorite pie rope and spessartite they occur in a wide variety of colors some more rare than others not just deep dark red garnet which most people think of first when you think of the January birthstone but intense rich green garnet incredible fiery orange garnet colorless garnet brown garnet yellow garnet from deep purple amethyst to golden brown zircon gemstones occur in dazzling diversity each individual stone a reflection of the unique conditions required to produce it gems are minerals and minerals grow only when the conditions for their growth are adequate if the conditions change then the mineral changes slight variations and conditions also leave telltale fingerprints in the form of inclusions tiny characteristics found within the stone these inclusions often allow gemologist to identify a stone and trace its parent country or even mine the best colored innumerous are produced by the mines in Colombia that she bore and the Moussa mine in the Shiva mine pyrite may be also found as an inclusion whereas calcite crystals in form of rhombohedron may be fine in the mousou mine so it is possible to tell the origin of the emerald by looking at the inclusions in some cases however there is little need for a jeweler's loupe or microscope to determine a stones origin certain gems such as this brilliant blue tanzanite are so rare that they have only been found in one place the sequence events are created in tanzanite only occurred in one small strip at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro what they call the mera Lonnie Hills and that's only about six kilometers long and about two kilometers wide so far they've found no other source of tanzanite in the entire world then there is hidden Knight an unusual emerald green variety of the mineral spa Jemaine 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 deep green hid night is so unique that it has even earned itself a spot on the map he's just found in one place in the world that's it that North Kerala and by an odd coincidence of geology and chemistry the deposit that produces this one-of-a-kind emerald colored gem also yields actual emeralds to have this deep green here tonight forming feet away from a rare chromium rich emerald crystal two totally different gem materials in virtually the same color but they crystallize differently their chemical composition is different and their their optical qualities are different just fascinating gemstones aren't always found where they were formed however as rocks are weathered by wind and water gemstones are often eroded out of their original matrix those fragments are easily taken by the rivers or by the ocean and transported a sediment eventually as the water slows the heavy gems will settle to the bottom accumulating in deposits of alluvial sand and gravel in riverbeds typically tumbled and polished by the journey downstream the rough gems found in alluvial deposits are often of high quality and easily recovered in fact alluvial mining is the oldest method of mining gemstones it's a method that stretches as far back as recorded history among the most rare objects on earth gemstones are an elusive treasure to find them prospectors such as these emerald hunters in hidden night North Carolina often search for what are called indicator minerals more common and less valuable than gemstones indicators are typically found in association with the desired gem we look for associated minerals such as your pyrites your tourmaline your root tools and all bites which is a felspar type crystal we look for all the combination of minerals here and then we know that we're in an area that potential for emeralds then it's a matter of digging or drilling to determine whether the desired gem occurs in a marketable quantity opal miners in the Australian town of Coober Pedy spend days drilling core samples looking for precious opals telltale opalescent glimmer like explorative or called weed really and if we cut some traces or a bit of reasonable thickness OPA we open up alluvial finds can also lead an experienced prospector upstream to the gemstones primary deposit for instance small amounts of alluvial diamonds had been mined in Australia since the late 19th century but it wasn't until the 1970s that a company called CRA located the ancient volcanic source of the gemstones purely by good luck good fortune CRA discovered liberated diamonds in stream sediments on smoke Creek and at that point in time they only knew that the diamonds were actually coming from upstream and they then actually followed that stream up into what we know as the argyle pipe today the amount of luck involved in some gem discoveries is downright legendary for example while it has been less than four decades since tanzanite was first found in 1967 its origins are already shrouded in mystery and folklore it's a new gemstone very new in comparison the sapphires and rubies have been around for thousands of years tanzanite may be a new gemstone but in rough form it has been around for millions of years a seemingly worthless Rock littering the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro when you see it this original form it's kind of ugly have you ever seen rough kind of coke bottle color heavy brownish greenish it's just a weird colors sake natural blue tanzanite is extremely rare intense heat however will turn that previously ugly stone a deep translucent violet blue but it took thousands of years and supposedly a chance thunderstorm before a Maasai Shepherd stumbled across the secret the story going around Tanzania was when the lightning strikes have gently provided the heat needed to alter the color and what they're saying is as the storm came through somebody came afterwards and they saw the material change and oh my gosh it's a beautiful violet blue color mining tanzanite was initially a simple matter of picking up the stones scattered across the hillsides but the search soon went underground first when they got there you can literally pick the crystals off the ground it was amazing now they're going down to over 300 400 meters mining methods vary according to the type and richness 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 sifter at the water's edge if you ever seen people panning for gold it's kind of the same thing Pantha gemstone in wealthy Western nations the mining of rich alluvial deposits can be highly Meccan Australia's crystal mining company uses modern heavy machinery to dig up the alluvial sapphires entombed in the dried-up ancient riverbeds of the continents gem field region we've drilled at first so we know roughly where the deposit of sapphire is we have to send strip the overburden off and then we escalate the capital wash out of the pits which of course is transported up to behind us here where the wash plant is modern hard rock mining to recover gemstones from the original matrix is typically done on a similarly massive scale in this open pit mine high in the mountains of Brazil's Mena's urias region workmen use bulldozers to break up rock containing Imperial topaz then a crane and dragline bucket hauls the topaz bearing metrics to the top of the mine for sorting at present it's the only mine in the world where we can get the Topaz Jack the others are insignificant 95 to 98% of the topaz in the world comes from this mined diamond pipes are mined on an even more massive scale Australia's Argyle mine currently the world's largest producer of diamonds employs a small army of highly-trained technicians to operate hundreds of millions of dollars worth of state-of-the-art machinery we like to line with the best equipment using the best knowledge and experience that's out there in the world therefore it does make our operation a lot more efficient and a lot safer because we're using the latest equipment and the latest techniques at the other end of the spectrum are the tanzanite mines in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro they're using picks shovels they have wooden ladders they're made from scrap wood and these are nailed together and these stone guys will sometimes climb down a few hundred feet into a totally dark hole on this wooden ladder that I looked at I said Wow technology-wise there's really only one thing separating the Masai tribesman 'he's techniques and those employed in the ancient and legendary mines of King Solomon dynamite at night what's really amazing when you go back to hotel you'll start hearing a rumbling in the background and what you're and it sounds like massive thunder it's actually all the miners sending off their charges under the earth they do it after the mines are cleared out they place the charges every gets out and they start having these explosions one after the other and it sounds like the roar of thunder throughout the entire field and then go on for sometimes for hours whether the digging is done with bare hands or heavy machinery one thing remains constant they move a lot of earth just to find a few little pieces of crystal here and there for example in on average it is necessary to process a big volume of kimberlite maybe hundreds of tons of kimberlite to get one carat of diamond and from that volume of diamonds only one-fourth will be gem quality for Australian opal miners in Coober Pedy processing is a simple matter using methods miners have employed for millennia you just be getting the bags and then go home was it the buyer comes and then mine the other table and this is once unearthed the stones are one step closer to the consumer but the journey is far from over the gems are still in rough form and they have to be sorted and separated in the Imperial topaz mines of Brazil bulldozers may do the digging but the processing is still done by hand the crushed and washed or is dumped onto a conveyor belt where workmen pick out the Topaz for us to be able to get one carat of gem here at the mine we need to remove two cubic meters of soil from the mine down that meanwhile at Australia's crystal mining company the Sapphire rough is sorted and processed by purely mechanical means from there it goes through an up the conveyor belt into the trouble inside the trommel is big high pressure Jets of water which actually hit the material and bust up the lumps of clay and clean all the material up when it comes out of air it goes through what we call a pulsator which has worked from water pressure with diaphragms in the ends of it and as it pulses the material flows across the top and of course the sample has an Einstein being heavier they sink to the bottom the iron stone is removed with a magnetic separator leaving the sapphires some as small as one millimeter across so a hundred paces to the carat which are mainly used in watches in Switzerland to remove rough diamonds from the crushed ore Australia's Argyle mine uses an even more sophisticated machine called a photomultiplier there are x-ray machines which spray from all sides the rocks with x-rays when a diamond sees the x-ray if the rest is a bright blue and all of a sudden this thing will just shine like crazy when the photomultiplier tubes see visible light they initiate the air blast which blasts the diamond material into the concentrate stream and the the gang material disposed by gravity into a waste stream whether the work is done with x-rays or magnets the machines can accomplish in a matter of minutes what once took days to do by hand we come home the next day it's all fronts we've gone ready for market then once the last minuscule gem is recovered the stones are ready to be graded cut and polished for the wholesale market a gemstones market value is based on what are commonly called the four C's carat weight clarity color and cut each of those has impact on the beauty of the stone the desirability of the stone the rarity of the stone and thus the price of the stone carat weight the first of the four criteria measures the mass of the stone one carat is exactly 200 milligrams carat does not mean size it doesn't mean how big is it it means how heavy is it diamond weight 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 diamond for example is lighter than Ruby and Sapphire and heavier than an emerald so if you had three stones that all weighed one carat a one carat would be a one carat emerald and one carat diamond and they were all cut in the exact same shape and the same proportions the Ruby or sapphire would look almost 25% smaller than the diamond and the Emerald will look larger than the diamond ii see clarity is a measure of a gems internal characteristics called inclusions they can be microscopic crystals of some other Jim they can be little gas bubbles they can be stress fractures they can be lots of really interesting things you can get an imperfect diamond that might have a sapphire embedded in it which I've seen and it's gorgeous diamonds are graded on a twelve-point sliding scale ranging from flawless to included but for colored gems it is almost unheard of to find a stone that could be considered flawless people understand diamonds and they don't expect to see anything with their eye in the diamond that they come to expect that same characteristic and colored gemstones and it just doesn't exist in the world of colored gemstones color itself results from the presence of trace elements so from the very start you're going to have more inclusions as a result colored stones are held to different clarity standards than diamonds with diamonds there's a very precise grading system with color gemstones there is no universally accepted grading system and each category of gemstone is different in terms of what is acceptable in general when judging clarity colored gems fall into three broad categories in category one those gems form under the gentlest of geologic conditions you don't expect to see something with your naked eye then there's category two they form under more difficult geologic conditions it is not at all uncommon to see minor things with the naked eye the third category of colored gemstones form under the most violent geologic conditions therefore they are more prone to have cracks and other features readily visible to the naked eye and mold is the classic example of this and in fact when one sees a large deep green emerald and they don't see anything with the naked eye the first thing people wonders gee I wonder if it's real because we are so accustomed to to the fact that Emal's do have inclusions that are usually visible typically the more inclusions in a stone the lower the price but these tiny imperfections are also would give each individual gem its own distinct personality the great jeweler on Fifth Avenue in New York City Harry Winston he would describe the emerald inclusions as a garden and he would use the French word theirs right there the garden it just sounded so romantic so he turned this feature around into a plus [Music] 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 hue essential the impression of bali color that we get the tone how light or how dark dark that color may be and the saturation how Bibbit or pure the color may be a gemstone will be more valuable the pure the color but pure color like perfect clarity is a standard that nature rarely achieves there's no such thing as a pure spectral green or a pure spectral red in nature or blue the color is always modified by some other color for example when we think of rubies we can think of purplish red rubies or some are more slightly Ranji red more fire ng red when we think of blue sapphires some of the Blues have a faint green component to the blue some have a slight purple component to the blue some are really close to a pure pure blue but none is absolutely pure blue no stone is a pure green so you're always having to judge the modifier how much is the color altered by the presence of another color a stones color isn't always consistent either nature doesn't just go and blow color evenly throughout a stone so you have to also evaluate something called zoning or distribution of color some gems are more prone to having colorless zones sapphires one amethyst is one citrine is one some gems can also combine more than one distinct color in a single crystal called multi coloring the phenomenon is common in many different varieties of tourmaline with some examples showing as many as 15 different colors Australia's gem field region also produces an unusual multicolored sapphire unique part about this sapphire deposit here at central Queensland is we get all the colors we do you think it's purple we don't get a lot that we get you know all the lovely greens and yellows and what we call party color which is a sapphire which is sort of half blue and half yellow whether it's a rich red ruby or stunning blue tanzanite what color is right for the consumer is largely a matter of personal taste but before you buy be sure to look at the stone under different types of light because the light environment can greatly affect a colored gemstones appearance fluorescent lighting the light itself is very heavy on the blue violet end and there's no red orange component in the light that's going to affect blue stones and it's going to affect red stones red stones it frequently effects adversely so you have to ask yourself are you wearing this all the time are you wearing it only in the evening are you hearing it mostly in the day what type of lighting are you likely to be wearing it in and look at the color of that stone in that type of light and make sure you like it the phortse cut represents the next major stage in a gemstones journey from formation to finish product and since the vast majority of gems are cut in a handful of centers around the world cutting often accounts for most of the actual mileage in a stones trip a lot of the semi-precious gemstones are cut in China and in India there are a lot of the sapphire and Ruby are cut in Thailand most diamonds depending on their size and quality are cut in one of just a handful of places around the globe India will take care of a lot of the small diamonds the Mele diamonds that are labor-intensive Israel take a chair of a lot of the fancy cut diamonds Belgium takes care of little larger diamonds and New York usually takes care of the bigger diamonds China has really been up-and-coming in terms of a diamond cutting facility wherever the work is done the way a gem is cut is generally dictated by the geometry of the stone oftentimes gemstones will be cut according to the crystal structure in other words we want to maintain as much weight on that piece of stone on that gemstone that is going to be maintaining the most value to it so for example emeralds are usually cut an emerald cut in particular the Colombian emerald because that grows in a long crystal so they will cut it in a square or rectangular format to maintain the most weight on their sapphires and rubies because of the way the rough occurs are usually cut in what we call a cushion cut which is sort of ombre square with rounded corners the geometry of the rough however isn't the only thing a skilled cutter takes into account how a stone is cut can often enhance a gems other defining characteristics particularly color people who are skilled cutters cut to maximize the color and the beauty of the color so if the basic rough crystal is a little bit light you might cut the stone a little deeper a little more weight in the bottom to intensify that color so it faces up with a richer color Ruby it may show a more vivid red in one direction and a paler pink on the other direction so it is in the skill of the cutter to orient it so that it will show the best color a skillful cut can even trick the eye when it comes 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 largest and all of them will say the 1 carat because the one carat was cut shallower the 2 carat was cut deeper it really relies on a person's experience and some of them have a lifetime of experience of cutting just that one gemstone whether it's a ruby or garnet they cut that stone year after year and you find that they have just such a knack for looking at a piece of rough and determining what shape is going to be the best and produce the best color the the best clarity and in the most beautiful stone that will come out of them the cut however isn't the only way to improve a gemstones beauty in value over the centuries man has developed a wide variety of both traditional and high-tech methods to improve a stones clarity in color one of the oldest methods of gem enhancement dates all the way back to the age of the Pharaohs using a technique still used today the ancient Egyptians discovered that rubbing emeralds with oil and proved both their beauty and durability emerald has been routinely oiled for centuries they're prone to little fractures when light goes through and hits those fractures and gets scattered it can cause whitish areas throughout the stone by putting a collarless oil into those cracks it provides a medium through which the light now travels soup so it eliminates that whitish nough centuries-old technique detailed in ancient indian manuscripts applies searing heat to sapphires and rubies in sri lanka it's been an ancient tradition to actually take some of this sapphire and Ruby rough and put it in coconut husks and throw it in the fire the flames not only improve the stones color heat can also make the stone look brighter raising it to 1700 degrees or higher you will actually find that it oftentimes will not only improve the color of that gemstone by driving off the secondary color the off color but it'll also improve the clarity as well some of that silk or haziness actually kind of melts or disappears there virtually all Ruby and Sapphire sold in most jewelry stores for decades now has been subjected to this routine heating process to improve the color other gems typically subjected to heat treatments include zircon aquamarine and tanzanite more modern methods employed lasers or even radiation to enhance clarity in color bombarding the gemstone with particles is the main way in which the gemstone is altered all gemstones entering into the United States market are regulated by the government and if a gemstone is irradiated then it's required to go through this cooldown period where then it's no longer a danger to us high-tech treatment 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 gems from a rare luxury only the rich could afford into something millions of middle-class consumers can enjoy there's a large demand especially a global demand when you look at the burgeoning middle classes in China and India for example there are a lot of people that want gemstones to meet that rising demand prospectors and buyers scoured the globe searching for new sources of gems the quest touches every continent no place is too far or too remote when we went to Vietnam they said ok do you want to go to the mines we said yes well it was a car ride till the road ended then when the road ended it was we got on motorcycles and I was back as motorcycles and then we drove over little bridges streams through hills and rocks and everything else - we couldn't drive a motorcycle anymore then we hit the mountain and it was you know climbed to the top that was hours long no so that I wasn't in shape for that by any means but would I do it again absolutely no because you're going to the source but the never-ending search for gems is in many ways a race against time there are a lot of gemstones in Brazil in Madagascar and China and the places around the world that produce some great quality stones but it's not a bottomless pit it that mine has a pocket there and it produces that that certain amount of material when that's gone it's gone demand for certain gems so far outpaced supply that if we had to rely on what the mines were producing in whatever quality was alone no one today would be wearing blue sapphires or rubies luckily science and technology has increased the supply of colored gems many of the gems sold today don't begin their journey deep underground instead they start out in a laboratory gem crystals grown in a lab are known as synthetics available in an array of colors and used in a variety of applications synthetics typically cost much less than stones found in nature they are not however 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 thing except in a synthetic it's created in a laboratory it can be mass-produced you can control the factors versus the one that's made by nature most synthetic gems are produced by one of two techniques both of which were developed in the late 1800s the flux method was developed by French chemist Edmund frame II in 1877 though it was not commercially available until the mid 1900s when gemstones are grown through the flux process what is done is to use another material to lower the point at which the nutrients that are going to go into the formation of the synthetic gem are molten and that material is called the 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 repeated over and over the process can yield large stones the flux techniques produce the more expensive type of synthetics because they more resemble the way in which nature works the resulting diamonds and emeralds look identical to natural stones but there are differences in the way they are grown and those differences leave telltale signs for example microscopic traces of the flux will appear as inclusions in the stone within a synthetic emerald form by the flux process this will live like platinum Plateau platelets within the emeralds the second method for making synthetic stones flame fusion also leaves telltale signs that a trained gemologist can easily spot developed by the French chemist Auguste Voronoi the process is primarily used to produce synthetic sapphire and Ruby as it drops a powdered oxide the chemical components through a very very hot flame onto a spinning rod when it goes through the flame it melts it hits the broad recrystallizes actually as it cools down on the rod it hardens into Ruby or sapphire for example these bulls as they are known grow quickly and can be quite large they are truly very inexpensive and they are used for costume jewelry mostly under a microscope or 10 power loupe their synthetic origin is readily apparent you can see curved patterns curved straya are common in Ruby they look like the grooves in a record or curve color banding can be seen in flame fusion blue sapphire in addition to rubies and sapphires synthetic spinel can also be made using the flame fusion process spinel comes in every color well just about every color and it became one of the most frequently used stones to simulate to imitate other gemstones the latest synthetic gems can easily deceive the untrained eye but scientists have also developed the means to spot them while modern technology can recreate a gemstones beauty and brilliance no lab can capture the mystery or the romance of the real thing that's the whole package that surrounds that it's that sense of adventure really makes the value of that gemstones so much more in other words the secret to a rare stones ageless appeal isn't just the gem it is also the journey [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: JTV Live Now

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Keywords: jtv, jewelry television, gemstones

Id: rR8NJSND_w4

Length: 48min 57sec (2937 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 10 2020