Beryl

Beryl Gemstones

• Hardness

  7.5 - 8.0.
  

• Occurrence

  North and South America, Northern Europe, East Africa, South Africa, Himalayan Asia, and most notably, Colombia. The beryl family of gemstones is composed of emerald, aquamarine, morganite, heliodor, goshenite, and the rare bixbite (red beryl). These are some of the most valued of all colored gemstones.
  

• Appearance

  Blue to blue-green (aquamarine), dark blue beryl (irradiated), green (emerald), light green (green beryl), greenish yellow to golden yellow (heliodor), peachy pink (peach beryl), pink (morganite), red (red beryl), and colorless (goshenite).
  

• Enhancements

  Red beryl and yellow-green beryls are not enhanced. Refer to the specific pages for enhancements of other types of beryl.
  More information on gemstone enhancements.


• Beryl
  
  
  In geology, beryl is a mineral composed of beryllium aluminium cyclosilicate with the chemical formula Be₃Al₂(SiO₃)₆. The hexagonal crystals of beryl may be very small or range to several meters in size. Terminated crystals are relatively rare. Pure beryl is colorless, but it is frequently tinted by impurities; possible colors are green, blue, yellow, red, and white.
  
  

  Etymology

   

  The name beryl is derived (via Latin: beryllus, Old French: beryl, and Middle English: beril) from Greek beryllos which referred to a "precious blue-green color-of-sea-water stone"and originated from Prakrit veruliya and Pali veḷuriya ; veḷiru ; from Sanskrit  vaidurya-, which is ultimately of Dravidian origin, maybe from the name of Belur or "Velur" in southern India The term was later adopted for the mineral beryl more exclusively. The Late Latin word berillus was abbreviated as brill- which produced the Italian word brillare meaning "shine", the French word brille meaning "shine", the Spanish word brillo, also meaning "shine", and the English word brilliance. 
  

   

  Deposits

   

  Beryl of various colors is found most commonly in granitic pegmatites, but also occurs in mica schists in the Ural Mountains, and limestone in Colombia. Beryl is often associated with tin and tungsten ore bodies. Beryl is found in Europe in Norway, Austria, Germany, Sweden (especially morganite), Ireland and Russia, as well as Brazil, Colombia, Madagascar, Mozambique, South Africa, the United States, and Zambia. US beryl locations are in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Dakota and Utah.
  New England's pegmatites have produced some of the largest beryls found, including one massive crystal from the Bumpus Quarry in Albany, Maine with dimensions 5.5 by 1.2 m (18 by 3.9 ft) with a mass of around 18 metric tons; it is New Hampshire's state mineral. As of 1999, the world's largest known naturally occurring crystal of any mineral is a crystal of beryl from Malakialina, Madagascar, 18 meters long and 3.5 meters in diameter, and weighing 380,000 kilograms.
  
  
  
  

  Morganite (Pink Beryl)

  
  

  Morganite, also known as "pink beryl", "rose beryl", "pink emerald", and "cesian (or caesian) beryl", is a rare light pink to rose-colored gem-quality variety of beryl. Orange/yellow varieties of morganite can also be found, and color banding is common. It can be routinely heat treated to remove patches of yellow and is occasionally treated by irradiation to improve its color. The pink color of morganite is attributed to Mn2+ ions.
  Pink beryl of fine color and good sizes was first discovered on an island on the coast of Madagascar in 1910.It was also known, with other gemstone minerals, such as tourmaline and kunzite, at Pala, California. In December 1910, the New York Academy of Sciences named the pink variety of beryl "morganite" after financier J. P. Morgan.
  On October 7, 1989, one of the largest gem morganite specimens ever uncovered, eventually called "The Rose of Maine," was found at the Bennett Quarry in Buckfield, Maine, US.
  
  
  

  Red beryl

   

  Red beryl is very rare and has only been reported from a handful of locations including: Wah Wah Mountains, Beaver County, Utah; Paramount Canyon and Round Mountain, Sierra County, New Mexico;and Juab County, Utah. The greatest concentration of gem-grade red beryl comes from the Violet Claim in the Wah Wah Mountains of mid-western Utah, discovered in 1958 by Lamar Hodges, of Fillmore, Utah, while he was prospecting for uranium. Prices for top quality natural red beryl can be as high as $10,000 per carat for faceted stones. Red beryl has been known to be confused with pezzottaite, also known as raspberry beryl or "raspberyl", a gemstone that has been found in Madagascar and now Afghanistan – although cut gems of the two varieties can be distinguished from their difference in refractive index.
  
  While gem beryls are ordinarily found in pegmatites and certain metamorphic stones, red beryl occurs in topaz-bearing rhyolites. It is formed by crystallizing under low pressure and high temperature from a pneumatolitic phase along fractures or within near-surface miarolitic cavities of the rhyolite. Associated minerals include bixbyite, quartz, orthoclase, topaz, spessartine, pseudobrookite and hematite