Gems and Gemstones

A variety of tumbled gemstones Scanned by Adrian Pingstone Amber that has been preserved since the age of dinosaurs is found in s...

Ship Rock close to the diamond fields The guys that dreamed up the Great Arizona Diamond Swindle sure did a good job of it, and o...

Bedrock map of North America   USGS This is a tale about how riches were overlooked in Colorado , Montana and Wyoming by gold se...

Uncut diamonds From the earliest days of the California Gold Rush diamonds were found in the tailraces of sluice boxes that were...

A large crystal of sapphire from Madagascar Photo by Rob Lavinsky  This was found in a stream in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Geo...

Semi precious gemstones Photo by Mauro Cateb All gemstones are minerals, but not all minerals are gemstones, so the limited knowle...

Interpenetrating cubes of diamond Photo by Rob Lavinsky The word morphology means what it looks like.  Diamond crystals are a good...