Emeralds

10/05/12
Yotzer Cabrera Manzanilla
Miss Rachel Mac Nally
English 9ºb
Special Assignment Gemstones
Emerald
Emeralds are fascinating gemstones. They have the most beautiful, most intense andmost radiant green that can possibly be imagined, emerald green. Inclusions are tolerated. In top quality, fine emeralds are even more valuable than diamonds.
Emeralds are used in a variety ofjewelry such as earrings, rings, and pendants. Jewelry is the main purpose of emeralds because they so are valuable as gems. The ways that you can determine the value of an emerald are by looking atthe clarity, size, and color of the stone. The darker the green the higher the value. Emeralds are commonly cut in an emerald cut, a type of cut which takes into account that if emeralds are cutwithout care they can break, decreasing the value.
Most emeralds, including the finest in the world are mined in Colombia. Emeralds are also found in India, South Africa, Afghanistan, Pakistan,Russia, Zimbabwe and North Carolina. Emerald mining is nearly exclusively from host rocks, where the emerald has grown into small veins or on walls of cavities.
The mineral beryl consists ofberyllium aluminum silicate (Be3Al2 (SiO3)6), and the emerald variety is colored green by the presence of traces of chromium or vanadium, and sometimes iron. The color varies in shades of green and bluishgreen. In addition, emeralds come in a wide spectrum of clarity, along with various numbers of inclusions.
The emerald has a hexagonal crystal structure and a hardness of about 7.5 on the 10-pointMoths scale of hardness. This hardness rating decreases, however, with an increase in the number of inclusions in the stone. Most emeralds have many inclusions, and it is rare to find an emerald with onlyminor inclusions. Consequently, the resistance to breakage is generally rated as poor.
Emerald is usually treated with colorless oil, wax, or natural and synthetic resins into voids to improve...