Spinel found in Arizona has fooled diamond brokers.
UP DATE stones are not Spinel but are Topez.
Click on any photo to inlarge
Compare these in this photo and the diamonds at
http://www.diamondrough.com/rough/page_r10a.html
Other sites to check out about gem stones are;
http://wildfishgems.com/
http://www.gemstone.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=124:sapphire&catid=1:gem-by-gem&Itemid=14
http://www.gemselect.com/group/gemselect.php?t_25=on&x_ByType=on&km=25
Spinel hardness = 8
Back in 2006 my exwife and I bought some land and moved our RV on it. Looking at the ant hills I saw what looked like broken glass. But the ants brought them up. I collected some and took them to the RV and looked at them with a 20X magnifying glass. I swore I was looking at diamonds. So over some 2 years I would go out and pick them up with tweezers and filled some medicine bottles with them. There sizes ranged from 1/2 carat and smaller. In 2010 a friend took some to the Verde Valley and they made there way to a diamond broker. My friend got back with me and told me they were diamonds. He then sent some to another diamond broker on the east coast. My friend got a call a couple weeks later and was asked how many of these stones I had. He said a lot of them, then he was told to put them in a safe deposit box.
So how would diamonds end up in arizona? Diamonds can also form in other natural high-pressure, relatively low-temperature events. Very small diamonds, known as microdiamonds or nanodiamonds, have been found in impact craters where meteors strike the Earth and create shock zones of high pressure and temperature where diamond formation can occur. Microdiamonds are now used as one indicator of ancient meteorite impact sites. Well meteor crater is west of my place.
Some of the stones ended up in a lab in New Mexico for testing. The testing turned up that they were spinel. I have been looking on the Internet about them and have not found any clear spinel only colored. Some of my stones have a hint of color; Pink, Orange, Yellow, and yes Red.
I say chippies or chips not because they are chips but they are smaller than the stones. The stones are much bigger and not as nice looking but when cut ??? or polished ???
Colored is just a hint not red like a ruby but a hazy Pink, Orange, Yellow, or Red in some chippies as seen in the photo above.
Found a jeweler he test my stones on May 28 and said it could be Topaz. I told him about the lab in MN. He said The 1/4 ct stones value is around $2.00 each.
Spinel crystallizes in the isometric system; common crystal forms are octahedra, usually twinned. It has an imperfect octahedral cleavage and a conchoidal fracture. Its hardness is 8, its specific gravity is 3.5-4.1 and it is transparent to opaque with a vitreous to dull luster. It may be colorless, but is usually various shades of red, blue, green, yellow, brown or black. There is a unique natural white spinel, now lost, that surfaced briefly in what is now Sri Lanka. Some spinels are among the most famous gemstones: Among them is the Black Prince's Ruby and the 'Timur ruby' in the British Crown Jewels, and the 'cote de Bretagne' formerly from the French Crown jewels. The Samarian Spinel is the largest known spinel in the world, weighing 500 carats (100 g).
The transparent red spinels were called spinel-rubies or balas rubies. In the past, before the arrival of modern science, spinels and rubies were equally known as rubies. After the 18th century the word ruby was only used for the red gem variety of the mineral corundum and the word spinel became used. "Balas" is derived from Balascia, the ancient name for Badakhshan, a region in central Asia situated in the upper valley of the Kokcha River, one of the principal tributaries of the Oxus River. The Badakshan Province was for centuries the main source for red and pink spinels.
To get more technical info go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinel#Spinel_group or http://www.mindat.org/min-3729.html
I have found larger stones up to nickel size but not sure if they are spinel. I had watched a show on diamond in there rough natural state and they seem to resemble them. I need to test the hardness to know more. there is quarts in the area but it is noticeably different being whitish and with sharp rough edges. I am finding colored stones now that I have looked in the intrnet for more info and have an idea what to look for.
Two stones below areSpinel Topaz. The one on the right is 3.55 carats
UP DATE stones are not Spinel but are Topez.
Click on any photo to inlarge
Compare these in this photo and the diamonds at
http://www.diamondrough.com/rough/page_r10a.html
Other sites to check out about gem stones are;
http://wildfishgems.com/
http://www.gemstone.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=124:sapphire&catid=1:gem-by-gem&Itemid=14
http://www.gemselect.com/group/gemselect.php?t_25=on&x_ByType=on&km=25
Spinel hardness = 8
| Hardness | Mineral | Absolute Hardness |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Talc(Mg3Si4O10(OH)2) | 1 |
| 2 | Gypsum (CaSO4•2H2O) | 2 |
| 3 | Calcite (CaCO3) | 9 |
| 4 | Fluorite (CaF2) | 21 |
| 5 | Apatite(Ca5(PO4)3(OH-,Cl-,F-)) | 48 |
| 6 | Orthoclase Feldspar (KAlSi3O8) | 72 |
| 7 | Quartz (SiO2) | 100 |
| 8 | Topaz (Al2SiO4(OH-,F-)2) | 200 |
| 9 | Corundum (Al2O3) | 400 |
| 10 | Diamond (C) | 1500 |
Back in 2006 my exwife and I bought some land and moved our RV on it. Looking at the ant hills I saw what looked like broken glass. But the ants brought them up. I collected some and took them to the RV and looked at them with a 20X magnifying glass. I swore I was looking at diamonds. So over some 2 years I would go out and pick them up with tweezers and filled some medicine bottles with them. There sizes ranged from 1/2 carat and smaller. In 2010 a friend took some to the Verde Valley and they made there way to a diamond broker. My friend got back with me and told me they were diamonds. He then sent some to another diamond broker on the east coast. My friend got a call a couple weeks later and was asked how many of these stones I had. He said a lot of them, then he was told to put them in a safe deposit box.
So how would diamonds end up in arizona? Diamonds can also form in other natural high-pressure, relatively low-temperature events. Very small diamonds, known as microdiamonds or nanodiamonds, have been found in impact craters where meteors strike the Earth and create shock zones of high pressure and temperature where diamond formation can occur. Microdiamonds are now used as one indicator of ancient meteorite impact sites. Well meteor crater is west of my place.
Some of the stones ended up in a lab in New Mexico for testing. The testing turned up that they were spinel. I have been looking on the Internet about them and have not found any clear spinel only colored. Some of my stones have a hint of color; Pink, Orange, Yellow, and yes Red.
I say chippies or chips not because they are chips but they are smaller than the stones. The stones are much bigger and not as nice looking but when cut ??? or polished ???
Colored is just a hint not red like a ruby but a hazy Pink, Orange, Yellow, or Red in some chippies as seen in the photo above.
Found a jeweler he test my stones on May 28 and said it could be Topaz. I told him about the lab in MN. He said The 1/4 ct stones value is around $2.00 each.
Spinel crystallizes in the isometric system; common crystal forms are octahedra, usually twinned. It has an imperfect octahedral cleavage and a conchoidal fracture. Its hardness is 8, its specific gravity is 3.5-4.1 and it is transparent to opaque with a vitreous to dull luster. It may be colorless, but is usually various shades of red, blue, green, yellow, brown or black. There is a unique natural white spinel, now lost, that surfaced briefly in what is now Sri Lanka. Some spinels are among the most famous gemstones: Among them is the Black Prince's Ruby and the 'Timur ruby' in the British Crown Jewels, and the 'cote de Bretagne' formerly from the French Crown jewels. The Samarian Spinel is the largest known spinel in the world, weighing 500 carats (100 g).
The transparent red spinels were called spinel-rubies or balas rubies. In the past, before the arrival of modern science, spinels and rubies were equally known as rubies. After the 18th century the word ruby was only used for the red gem variety of the mineral corundum and the word spinel became used. "Balas" is derived from Balascia, the ancient name for Badakhshan, a region in central Asia situated in the upper valley of the Kokcha River, one of the principal tributaries of the Oxus River. The Badakshan Province was for centuries the main source for red and pink spinels.
To get more technical info go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinel#Spinel_group or http://www.mindat.org/min-3729.html
I have found larger stones up to nickel size but not sure if they are spinel. I had watched a show on diamond in there rough natural state and they seem to resemble them. I need to test the hardness to know more. there is quarts in the area but it is noticeably different being whitish and with sharp rough edges. I am finding colored stones now that I have looked in the intrnet for more info and have an idea what to look for.
Two stones below are
Resold all the Spinel I got from you at a good profit!
ReplyDeleteThanks James
Tom