Born in May? Emeralds are your birthstone

I just love the hues that emeralds come in, don't you?  Although my favourite colour is generally blue, I've always been drawn to the green of emeralds.  Somehow, for me, it's a colour unlike any other gemstone. 

taken from https://pixabay.com

Here are some fun facts about emeralds:

They are made from the mineral beryl (we'll skip the formal chemical name, that's just too complicated!), and it's not the only gemstone that is beryl (for example, aquamarine is a beryl as well).  What makes it an emerald are the minute impurities of chromium or vanadium which give emeralds their characteristic green colour (yes, I was a biochemistry geek in another life!).

Emeralds are also known to generally be "soft" scoring around 7.5-8 on the Mohs scale of hardness (for comparison, diamonds are a 10), generally because the number of inclusions, or impurities in the stone.

Gachala Emerald, taken from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gachala_Emerald_3526711557_849c4c7367.jpg

The first known emerald is thought to have been mined in Egypt around 1500 BC, that's a pretty long time ago!! However, although Columbia is the largest current producing of gemstone quality emerald, the stone is found all over the world, including

There is some interesting (and bizarre) folklore surrounding emeralds, too. Apparently, putting an emerald under your tongue can help you see the future, and they were believed to act as a "truth potion" to indicate whether your lover was telling the truth. Something a bit more believable is that emerald was thought to relax and relieve eye strain.  Maybe I'll have to test the truth of that one!


Here's some more eye candy showing some of the different shapes and cuts that you find for emeralds:

taken from: http://www.mycrowndowntown.com/jewelry-education/gemstones/emerald-gemstone-jewelry/

That's all from me for today, but why not pop into the studio and check out our gemstone jewellery?