Aquamarine is a pale-blue to light-green variety of the beryl family,[2] with its name relating to water and sea.[3] The color of aquamarine can be changed by heat, with a goal to enhance its physical appearance (though this practice is frowned upon by collectors and jewelers).[4] It is the birth stone of March.[5]
Aquamarine is a fairly common gemstone,[6] rendering it more accessible for purchase, compared to other gems in the beryl family.[7] Overall, its value is determined by weight, color,[5] cut, and clarity.[8]
It is transparent to translucent and possesses a hexagonal crystal system.[9] Aquamarine mainly forms in granite pegmatites and hydrothermal veins,[10] and it is a very lengthy process that can take millions of years to form.[9]
Aquamarine occurs in many countries over the world, and is most commonly used for jewlery, decoration and its properties.[11]
Aquamarine is mainly extracted through open-pit mining, however underground mining is also a possibility to access aquamarine reserves.[12]
Aquamarine is a durable gemstone, but it highly recommended to conserve it on its own to prevent damage/scratches.[9]
Famous aqumarines include the Dom Pedro, the Roosevelt Aquamarine, the Hirsch Aquamarine, Queen Elizabeth's Tiara, Meghan Markle's ring, and the Schlumberger bow.[13]
Name and etymology
The name aquamarine comes from aqua (Latin for 'water'), and marine, deriving from marina (Latin for 'of the sea').[3] The word aquamarine was first used in the year 1677.[14][10]
The word aquamarine has been used as a modifier for other minerals like aquamarine tourmaline, aquamarine emerald, aquamarine chrysolite, aquamarine sapphire, or aquamarine topaz.[15]
Physical properties
Crystal structure of Aquamarine
Aquamarine is blue with hues of green, caused by trace amounts of iron found within the crystal structure. It can vary from pale to vibrant and transparent to translucent. Better transparency in aquamarine gemstones means that light may go through the crystal with less interference. The hexagonal crystal system is where aquamarine crystallizes. Prismatic crystals with a hexagonal cross-section are formed by it.[9][16] These crystals can be microscopic to enormous in size and frequently feature faces with vertical striating. The lustre of aquamarine ranges from vitreous to resinous. It can have a glass-like brilliance and a sheen when cut and polished correctly.[9]
Chemical composition
Aquamarine has a chemical composition of Be3Al2Si6O18,[5] also containing Fe2+.[17] It belongs to the beryl family, being a beryllium aluminum silicate mineral. It is closely related to emerald, morganite, and heliodor. Aquamarine is chemically stable and resistant to most common chemicals and acids.[9] It has a hardness of 7.5–8 on the Mohs scale.[18][16] While aquamarine often contains no inclusions,[19] it may possess them, with content such as mica, hematite, saltwater, biotite, rutile or pyrite.[15] Its hardness on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness is rated as 7.5-8.[16] This rating gives aquamarine the chance to be a very suitable gem for everyday wear.[9]
Geological formation
Aquamarine mainly forms in granite pegmatites (coarse-grained igneous rock) and hydrothermal vents. The remaining liquid that is left behind after granitic magma crystallizes is what gives rise to pegmatites.[10][9] The residual fluids, which are rich in volatile elements and minerals such as silicon, aluminum, and beryllium, concentrate when the magma cools and solidifies.[9]
Aquamarine found in granite pegmatite
Aquamarine may also be formed by hydrothermal fluids, which are hot, mineral-rich solutions. These liquids contain dissolved minerals and metals as they move through fissures and cavities in the crust of the Earth. Fractures, faults, and veins are just a few of the geological environments that hydrothermal systems can be linked to.[9]
Beryllium is a necessary component for the production of aquamarine, a type of beryl. Although beryllium is a relatively uncommon element in the crust of the Earth, it can be found in concentrated forms in some geological settings. These include beryllium-rich hydrothermal systems and granite pegmatites, which contain large amounts of beryllium-bearing minerals.[9]
The dissolved elements start to precipitate out of the solution and form crystals as the hydrothermal fluids cool and come into contact with the right minerals and circumstances. Crystals of beryl, which include aquamarine, begin to form in pegmatite veins and host rock fissures or cavities. Aquamarine crystals grow over long periods, which enables them to take on their distinctive hexagonal prismatic shape.[9]
This is a very long process that can take millions of years to form. The settings in which aquamarine forms can vary and may lead to variations in gem quality, size, and color.[9]
The value of aquamarine is determined by its weight, color,[5] cut, and clarity.[8] Due to its relative abundance, aquamarine is comparatively less expensive than other gemstones within the beryl group, such as emerald or bixbite (red beryl), however it is typically more expensive than similarly colored gemstones such as blue topaz.[19][6] Maxixe is a rarer variant of aquamarine, with its deep blue coloration,[19] however, its color can fade due to sunlight.[1] The color of maxixe is caused by NO3.[20] Dark-blue maxixe color can be produced in green, pink or yellow beryl by irradiating it with high-energy radiation (gamma rays, neutrons or even X-rays).[21] Naturally occurring blue hued aquamarine specimens are more expensive than those that have undergone heat treatment to reduce yellow tones caused by ferric iron.[6] Cut aquamarines that are over 25 carats will have a lower price per carat than smaller ones of the same quality.[22] Overall, the quality and color will vary depending on the source of the gem.[9]
In culture
Aquamarine stone in a silver pendant
Aquamarine is the birth stone for the month of March.[5] It has historically been used a symbol for youth and happiness due to its color, which has also, along with its name, made Western culture connect it with the ocean.[23][22] Ancient tales have claimed that aquamarine came from the treasure chests of mermaids; which led to sailors using this gemstone as a lucky charm to protect against shipwreck.[24] Additionally, ancient Romans believed this stone had healing properties, due to the stone being almost invisible when submerged in water.[7][10]
Portrait of Julia Domma carved into aquamarine in 1942. (Intaglio)
The Egyptians, Greeks, Hebrews, and Sumerians all believed that aquamarine stones were worn by the High Priest of the Second Temple. It was said that these stones were engraved to represent the six tribes of Israel. Greeks also engraved designs into aquamarine 2 thousand years ago and turned them into intaglios.[27]
In our modern era, aquamarine is mainly used for jewelery, decoration and its properties.[11] It can be cut and shaped into rings, earrings, necklaces, and bracelets.
The World's largest aquamarine ever found is the Dom Pedro aquamarine found in Pedra Azul, Minas Gerais, Brazil, in the late 1980's. It is roughly 4.6 pounds, cut from a 100-pound aquamarine crystal. It is 10,363 carats and resides in the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, in Washington.[32]
Mining and extraction
The initial stages of the aquamarine mining process involve prospecting and exploration. Finding prospective locations or regions with aquamarine reserves is necessary. Geological mapping, remote sensing, mapping, remote sensing, sampling,[12] and other methods are used by geologists and mining firms to locate potentially aquamarine-containing geological formations and structures. Preparation of the site is the next step, which includes removing any vegetation, leveling the land, and constructing the facilities - such as access roads and workspaces. It is possible to mine aquamarine using both open-pit and underground techniques. This will depend on the size of the operation, the features of the deposit, and environmental conditions.[9]
The most popular technique for extracting aquamarine on a large scale is open-pit mining.[12] In order to reveal the aquamarine-bearing ore, the soil, vegetation, and rock cover must be removed. The ore is extracted using trucks, bulldozers, and excavators, to remove the material.[9]
Underground mining may occasionally be used to obtain aquamarine reserves. This process entails digging shafts and tunnels[12] to reach the ore bodies or veins that contain gems. When the aquamarine deposit is deep or the surrounding rock is too hard for open-pit extraction, underground mining is used, even though it can be more difficult and expensive than open-pit mining.[9]
After extraction, the ore containing aquamarine is delivered to a processing plant. To extract the aquamarine crystals from the surrounding rock and other minerals, the ore is crushed, processed, and occasionally cleaned. The aquamarine can be concentrated and purified using a variety of methods, such as magnetic separation, froth flotation, and gravity separation.[9]
The aquamarine crystals are then sorted according to size, shape, color, and clarity following the initial processing. The gemstones are assessed and graded by gemologists and experts according to predetermined standards, such as the four C's (color, clarity, cut, and carat weight). Only the best aquamarine crystals are chosen to be used in jewelry made of gemstones.[9]
Care and maintenance
Aquamarine is classified as a durable gem, however, it may still be damaged. In storage, it is advised to place it on its own, without the interruption of other gemstones to prevent scratches. Warm soapy water and a soft brush are the best ways to clean this gemstone, however, ultrasonic cleaners are relatively safe for aquamarine.[9]
Alternative uses
Although aquamarine is mainly used for jewlery,[11] aquamarine powder has proven to be a beneficial ingredient in cosmetics. It has a binding and skin protecting function that ensures protection of the skin from external influences.[33]
Given to US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt when she and President Roosevelt visited Brazil. It is known as the second largest cut specimen of aquamarine, behind the Dom Pedro.[38]
In 1957, she purchased this tiara from Garrad, to match another aquamarine set she had received from Brazilian President Getúlio Vargas in 1953 as a coronation gift.[38]
Beryl ( BERR-əl) is a mineral composed of beryllium aluminium silicate with the chemical formula Be3Al2Si6O18. Well-known varieties of beryl include emerald and aquamarine. Naturally occurring hexagonal crystals of beryl can be up to several meters in size, but terminated crystals are relatively rare. Pure beryl is colorless, but it is frequently tinted by impurities; possible colors are green, blue, yellow, pink, and red (the rarest). It is an ore source of beryllium.
Emerald is a gemstone and a variety of the mineral beryl (Be3Al2(SiO3)6) colored green by trace amounts of chromium or sometimes vanadium. Beryl has a hardness of 7.5–8 on the Mohs scale. Most emeralds have much material trapped inside during the gem's formation, so their toughness (resistance to breakage) is classified as generally poor. Emerald is a cyclosilicate.
A gemstone is a piece of mineral crystal which, when cut or polished, is used to make jewelry or other adornments. Certain rocks and occasionally organic materials that are not minerals may also be used for jewelry and are therefore often considered to be gemstones as well. Most gemstones are hard, but some softer minerals such as brazilianite may be used in jewelry because of their color or luster or other physical properties that have aesthetic value. However, generally speaking, soft minerals are not typically used as gemstones by virtue of their brittleness and lack of durability.
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical formula of SiO2. Quartz is, therefore, classified structurally as a framework silicate mineral and compositionally as an oxide mineral. Quartz is the second most abundant mineral in Earth's continental crust, behind feldspar.
Sapphire is a precious gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, consisting of aluminium oxide (α-Al2O3) with trace amounts of elements such as iron, titanium, cobalt, lead, chromium, vanadium, magnesium, boron, and silicon. The name sapphire is derived from the Latin word sapphirus, itself from the Greek word sappheiros (σάπφειρος), which referred to lapis lazuli. It is typically blue, but natural "fancy" sapphires also occur in yellow, purple, orange, and green colors; "parti sapphires" show two or more colors. Red corundum stones also occur, but are called rubies rather than sapphires. Pink-colored corundum may be classified either as ruby or sapphire depending on locale. Commonly, natural sapphires are cut and polished into gemstones and worn in jewelry. They also may be created synthetically in laboratories for industrial or decorative purposes in large crystal boules. Because of the remarkable hardness of sapphires – 9 on the Mohs scale (the third hardest mineral, after diamond at 10 and moissanite at 9.5) – sapphires are also used in some non-ornamental applications, such as infrared optical components, high-durability windows, wristwatch crystals and movement bearings, and very thin electronic wafers, which are used as the insulating substrates of special-purpose solid-state electronics such as integrated circuits and GaN-based blue LEDs. Sapphire is the birthstone for September and the gem of the 45th anniversary. A sapphire jubilee occurs after 65 years.
Topaz is a silicate mineral made of aluminum and fluorine with the chemical formula Al2SiO4(F, OH)2. It is used as a gemstone in jewelry and other adornments. Common topaz in its natural state is colorless, though trace element impurities can make it pale blue or golden brown to yellow-orange. Topaz is often treated with heat or radiation to make it a deep blue, reddish-orange, pale green, pink, or purple.
A pegmatite is an igneous rock showing a very coarse texture, with large interlocking crystals usually greater in size than 1 cm (0.4 in) and sometimes greater than 1 meter (3 ft). Most pegmatites are composed of quartz, feldspar, and mica, having a similar silicic composition to granite. However, rarer intermediate composition and mafic pegmatites are known.
The mineral or gemstone chrysoberyl is an aluminate of beryllium with the formula BeAl2O4. The name chrysoberyl is derived from the Greek words χρυσός chrysos and βήρυλλος beryllos, meaning "a gold-white spar". Despite the similarity of their names, chrysoberyl and beryl are two completely different gemstones, although they both contain beryllium. Chrysoberyl is the third-hardest frequently encountered natural gemstone and lies at 8.5 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, between corundum (9) and topaz (8).
Brazilianite, whose name derives from its country of origin, Brazil, is a typically yellow-green phosphate mineral, most commonly found in phosphate-rich pegmatites.
Phenakite or phenacite is a fairly rare nesosilicate mineral consisting of beryllium orthosilicate, Be2SiO4. Occasionally used as a gemstone, phenakite occurs as isolated crystals, which are rhombohedral with parallel-faced hemihedrism, and are either lenticular or prismatic in habit: the lenticular habit is determined by the development of faces of several obtuse rhombohedra and the absence of prism faces. There is no cleavage, and the fracture is conchoidal. The Mohs hardness is high, being 7.5–8; the specific gravity is 2.96. The crystals are sometimes perfectly colorless and transparent, but more often they are greyish or yellowish and only translucent; occasionally they are pale rose-red. In general appearance the mineral is not unlike quartz, for which indeed it has been mistaken. Its name comes from Ancient Greek: φέναξ, romanized: phénax, meaning "deceiver" due to its close visual similarity to quartz, named by Nils Gustaf Nordenskiöld in 1833.
Pezzottaite, marketed under the name raspberyl or raspberry beryl, is a mineral species first recognized by the International Mineralogical Association in September 2003. Pezzottaite is a caesium analogue of beryl, a silicate of caesium, beryllium, lithium and aluminium, with the chemical formula Cs(Be2Li)Al2Si6O18. Named after Italian geologist and mineralogist Federico Pezzotta, pezzottaite was first thought to be either red beryl or a new variety of beryl ("caesium beryl"); unlike actual beryl, however, pezzottaite contains lithium and crystallizes in the trigonal crystal system rather than the hexagonal system.
Jeremejevite is an aluminium borate mineral with variable fluoride and hydroxide ions. Its chemical formula is Al6B5O15(F,OH)3. It is considered as one of the rarest, thus one of the most expensive stones. For nearly a century, it was considered as one of the rarest gemstones in the world.
Topaz Mountain is a summit in the Thomas Range of Utah, east of the Thomas caldera. The summit and surrounding area are known for their abundances of semiprecious minerals including topaz, red beryl and opal.
The Dom Pedro aquamarine is the world's largest cut aquamarine gem. It was cut from a crystal originally weighing approximately 60 pounds (27 kg) and measuring almost 2 feet (0.61 m) in length. The stone was mined in Pedra Azul, in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil around 1980, and named after the Brazilian emperors Pedro I and Pedro II. The blue-green gemstone was cut by Bernd Munsteiner into an obelisk form weighing 10,363 carats. The finished dimensions measure 14 inches (36 cm) tall by 4 inches (10 cm) wide. The jewel was donated to the Smithsonian Institution by Jane Mitchell and Jeffery Bland. It is housed in the National Museum of Natural History's Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology.
Goshenite is a colorless gem variety of beryl. It is called the mother of all gemstones because it can be transformed into other like emerald, morganite, or bixbite. Goshenite is also referred to as the purest form of beryl since there are generally no other elements present in the stone. The gem is used as imitation for diamond or emerald by adding colored foil on it.
Morganite is an orange or pink variety of beryl and is also a gemstone. Morganite is mined in Brazil, Afghanistan, Mozambique, Namibia, the United States, and Madagascar.
Red beryl, formerly known as bixbite and marketed as red emerald or scarlet emerald, is an extremely rare variety of beryl as well as one of the rarest minerals on Earth. The gem gets its red color from manganese ions embedded inside of beryllium aluminium cyclosilicate crystals. The color of red beryl is stable up to 1,000 °C (1,830 °F). Red beryl can come in various tints like strawberry, bright ruby, cherry, and orange.
Bavenite is a calcium beryllium aluminosilicate, and it is a part of the Bavenite-Bohseite series. Its name originates from its type locality, which is Baveno, Italy. This mineral is approved by the IMA, and got grandfathered, meaning it is still believed to refer to a valid mineral species. It was discovered in 1901 in a pink granite mined in Lago Maggiore. When bavenite was discovered, it was considered as a member of the zeolite series. Later it was removed from the series as unlike zeolites, bavenite loses the water stored in its crystal lattice in a way higher temperature, between 210 and 320 °C. It is a cheap mineral considering its rarity.
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