Amber: Amber is one of the few organic gemstones that exist. Amber is made when tree resin is fossilized. Most people I speak with directly think that its sap, but this is not the case. The word sap and resin are used almost interchangeably but there are a few differences. Sap is the sugar and water mixture found in trees, while resin is the liquid that oozes from cuts in the trees outer shell. Due to i (read full)

Opal: Opal is hydrated silicon dioxide. It has the same chemical composition as quartz but contains about one-tenth (and sometimes as much as one-third) water. It is never crystalline, but it displays a rich play of colors, or "fire" caused by the internal refraction of light by the array of tiny spheres of amorphous silica which for a compact, three-dimensional network in the mineral. It may be somew (read full)

Jet Lignite: Jet is an organic gem material composed of lignite, and is a bituminous coal which can be polished. It is compact, homogeneous, has a hard, glossy surface and black interior variety of fossilized lignite or coal. It is an opaque black coalified fossilized drift wood from the coniferlike, 180 million years old 'Araucaria' or monkey puzzle tree that has been dried and fractured following death of (read full)

Zircon: Zircon is a zirconium silicate with a tetragonal crystal system, and also contains thorium and uranium. It appears as stubby, prismatic, isolated or sometimes dipyramidal, like two pyramids connected at their bases; or in twins, colorless to yellow, red, brown, gray or green, in irregular granules. It is very hard, heavy, with indistinct cleavage, and shell-like fracture. It is sometimes perfect (read full)