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20 interesting facts about precious stones
1. Today, there are more than 4 thousand minerals. Every year open dozens of new mineral species and a few "close" - proves that this mineral does not exist.
2. All the gems are mined by hand.
3. On average, one produced in Colombia carat emerald accounted for 20 tons of recycled soil.
4. Diamond - the only from all gemstones, which consists of a single chemical element - carbon.
5. Number of minerals is constantly decreasing, so the price of jewelry will always grow.
6. There is a special grenade (ant) deposits which can be found just next to an anthill. Crystals of this mineral are found only near the ant nests. When constructing nests, crystals of this mineral insects thrown to the surface. These ants live in the United States at a place called "the 4 corners».
7. Many people mistakenly think that the diamond is only colorless. In fact, the color palette of the diamond are the envy of all the precious mineral. But nowadays not all colored diamonds have a natural color. Many stones are artificially colored. This is due to their rarity.
8. Before the invention of Mohs (Mohs' scale of hardness) is determined by the color of the stones. So all of the green emerald stones became red - rubies and so on. D.
9. This diamond emerald expensive.
10. 95% of all rubies artificially ennobled. To avoid such a fate can only really big and perfectly beautiful stones.
11. ruby and sapphire - are the same. The difference between the colors of the stones only.
12. 90% of all mined diamonds are used for industrial purposes, and only 10% goes to jewelry counters.
13. alexandrite was named in honor of Prince Alexander, the future Emperor Alexander II.
14. Aquamarine and emerald - are one and the same, just take different chemical elements gives a different color. Chrome makes the emerald green and aluminum colors aquamarine blue.
15. Topaz has a bad habit to fade and discolour in the sun. Therefore, jewelry, where there is this mineral, it is not recommended to wear to the beach.
16. There are "red emerald". In fact it is - the red variety of beryl, Bixby. This is an extremely rare mineral is extracted and it is only in the state of Utah (USA).
17. Pink Topaz - this is a rare color variant of this mineral. That pink topaz is most often counterfeited.
18. Some minerals are very dangerous. For example, charoite may be a "mini-Chernobyl" and vermilion "broken mercury thermometer».
19. Almost all emeralds have cracks, and inclusions (according to various estimates 90-95%). But that does not diminish their value, as judged by the color of the mineral, and saturation.
20. Kremlin stars are made of ruby glass.
A selection was Popilon
via factroom.ru
