Leaning about gem stones

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 4:24 am

See I feel things this way... they are NOT flawed....Thats the way GOD made them and then HE let ME of all the people in the world find it. To me it and others are priceless. So that is the way you all should look at it....To me I would just call them priceless. Very Happy

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 5:54 am

daubster,

the best thing for you to do to help you recognize diamonds and other gemstones is go to www.mindat.org You can then see on that site the many different types/looks of diamonds. A diamond might have an actual diamond shape or it might look like 2 squares stuck together but is one stone, etc. Just look around on there and it will help alot and is fun to look at all the different specimen pics of gems as well...rough and cut.

this will help you recognize not just diamonds but other gemstones...
(that website has good clear pictures, if I took a pic of mine you would just think it was yellow quartz that was blurry lol and I need some more batteries as well. Will try and get some today.)

use that website though..its a good tool, for all precious and semi-precious stones. Lots of pictures and information about all gemstones.

Candy, I agree with ya..but for gemstones they have to be lapidary grade(enough quality that they can be cut, faceted and made into the many different standard shapes/sizes..)
Alot of people probably toss out pretty cool gems when prospecting for gold. Gemology is a good challenge for people I think...sometimes it can be very hard to recognize "rough" gems(the way they are found naturally).

Another thing that might help ppl out in the field is to get a gemstone field guide...(one that shows the stones in its rough uncut form and also the same gem after its been cut, etc..it can really trip ya out! It could be a really ugly looking odd rock and end up being a beautiful gem!)

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 8:10 am

A good visual indicator of a diamond is the curved crystal faces. Diamonds can occur in many different crystal shapes including cubes, octahedrons, & dodecahedrons. I'll post some more diamond photos later. These will be ones that I bought, since I have only found the one so far.

Madhatter, do you have any photos of the one you found?

Al

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 9:32 pm

I dont have any photos of it.

I still need some batteries for the camera and I thought I might try to get an ok pic of it....but being so small, its gonna be hard to get into focus.

Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2011 7:20 pm

Thanks Candy and Dick for links! I took some black sands of mine to work an looked at them under 700x magnification and was amazed at all the beautifull colors that were there, blue red yellow brown black. I'll take some pics of them and post.

Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 9:41 pm

Zdollerbill wrote:

Thanks Candy and Dick for links! I took some black sands of mine to work an looked at them under 700x magnification and was amazed at all the beautifull colors that were there, blue red yellow brown black. I'll take some pics of them and post.

WOW that would be cool to see. Looking forward to it.

Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 10:51 pm

its amazing looking at that stuff under big time magnification!

I've looked at some recently and saw ALOT of micron gold.

gonna collect me about a gallon of those black sands and extract with mercury..

lets face it though, rocks,gems,precious metals...they are all very very fascinating and interesting but we all share that common interest in atleast some ways(some/most people could care less lol).

Even though I like gold and all that goes with it more...I love gemstones and rocks in general as well. I can sit and look at rocks and rough gems for hours sometimes lol(i'm sure alot of us do that or have). The science behind it all and the geology of things is what I love about it all.

Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 9:41 pm

Someone mentioned microscope photos so here are a few I took.

Russian micro diamonds at 60x. These are about the size of a grain of sand;

Some black sand from Tennessee at 60x. In photo #3 notice the euhedral magnetite crystal near the top;

Enjoy,

Al

Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 9:58 pm

freakin awesome Al. thanks.

Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 10:34 pm

Al, thank you for the pics those are amazing!

Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 8:27 pm

Nice!

Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 4:34 am

I agree with ya madhatt3r most people don't care and I love all the rock and gems myself.
Shocked

WOW Al alsome pictures.. Its so cool to see more than our human eyes can see. You know how much My sisters and I love rocks. I will have to forwad this to them. Thanks