The 1980s have seen an explosion of interest in the cultured black pearls of French Polynesia, five groups of island archipelagos in the South Pacific. Twenty years ago, black pearls were a mere ...

Malaya garnets from Bekily, Madagascar, are predominantly pink to pinkish orange, with some stones orange to red. Discovered only in the late 1990s, the majority are intermediate members of the pyrope ...

Jewelry-quality synthetic malachite is now being manufactured in the USSR. The texture, structure, and physical and physico-chemical properties of this synthetic malachite are reported. Three textural ...

The modern elephant, threatened by extinction, is protected by international agreements banning the sale of ivory from tusks. This trade ban does not apply to ornaments made of mammoth fossil ivory, ...

Four similar-appearing yellowish green samples from Block D at Merelani, Tanzania, were identified as diopside and tremolite. The gems are identical in color, but their standard gemological properties ...