Gemstones: Turquoise Turquoise brings happiness and good fortune. Color: The color of turquoise ranges from sky blue through various shades of green to greenish and yellowish gray. Turquoise is opaque except in the thinnest splinters, and has a feeble, faintly waxy lustre. Description: Turquoise, hydrated copper and aluminum phosphate [CuAl6(PO4)4(OH)8*4H2O], that is extensively used as a gemstone. Turquoise is a secondary mineral deposited from circulating waters, and it occurs chiefly as an opaque, granular vein running through a host rock. The name's origin: The name turquoise undoubtedly comes from turc (Turkish in French)...

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Gemstones: Tourmaline Tourmaline brings tranquillity and serenity into your life. Color: Tourmaline comes in many colors such as blue, yellow, pink, red, black, green and clear. Green is from iron, chromium and vanadium, pink from manganese. Some crystals are pink at one end and green at the other. Description: Tourmaline is borosilicate mineral of complex and variable composition. Tourmaline is very abundant and has the best-developed crystals in pegmatites and in metamorphosed limestones in contact with granitic magmas. The colored varieties, when transparent and free from flaws, are cut as gems. Transparent crystals of tourmaline are dichroic - the depth...

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Gemstones: Topaz Topaz is a stone of strength. Color: Pure topaz is colorless, but it also occurs in a broad range of colors: yellow, blue, pink, peach, gold, green, red, and brown. Some natural yellow stones are heated to become permanently pink (pinked topaz). Description: Topaz is an aluminum fluorite silicate containing fluorine and has a chemical formula of Al2F2SiO4. It is one of the few gem minerals which, under suitable conditions, grow into enormous crystals. Topaz typically occurs in cavities in rhyolites and granite, in pegmatite...

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Gemstones: Tiger's-eye Tiger eye - offers courage, energy, and luck. Stone's names: Tiger eye, also spelled tiger's-eye and tigereye. Tiger eye is also called crocidolite cat's-eye or African cat's-eye. Color: Tiger eye has a rich yellow and golden brown stripes, with a fine golden lustre when polished. Description: Tiger eye is quartz that contains oriented fibres of crocidolite that have been replaced by silica. Tiger eye is displaying chatoyancy (a vertical luminescent band like that of a cat's eye) . Tiger eye typically has lustrous alternating yellow or brown bands. The name's origin: Tiger eye with its bands resembles an eye of tiger, so it is received its name due...

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Gemstones: Pearl Pearl symbolizes love, success, and happiness. Color: The color of pearls varies with the mollusk and its environment. It ranges from black to white, with the rose of Indian pearls esteemed most. Other colors are cream, gray, blue, yellow, lavender, green, and mauve. All occur in delicate shades. Cultured pearls are being produced in virtually every color of the rainbow. Description: The chief component of the nacre that constitutes the pearl is aragonite CaCO. Pearls are formed by a mollusk consisting of the same material (called nacre, or mother-of-pearl) as the mollusk's shell. It is a highly valued gemstone. The shell-secreting...

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Gemstones: Opal Opal is given as a symbol of hope, happiness and truth. Color: Opal is fundamentally colorless, but such material is rarely found. Disseminated impurities generally impart to opal various dull body colors that range from the yellows and reds derived from iron oxides to black from manganese oxides and organic carbon. The milkiness of many white and gray opals is attributable to an abundance of tiny gas-filled cavities in them. Precious opal reflects light with a play of brilliant colors across the visible spectrum, red being the most valued. Description: Amorthous silica, SiO2 + nH2O, A solidified jelly so it has no crystal structure and contains up to 13%...

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Gemstones: Onyx, Sardonyx Onyx - a symbol of eloquence. Stone's names: Onyx, Sardonyx (with white and brown bands). Color: The layers in these stones range from translucent to opaque for sardonyx. The stones vary in color, too. They may be white or gray, ranging to many colorful varieties. Sardonyx stones usually contain flat-banded, white and brownish-red bands. Onyx is a gemstone with alternating light and dark bands, which are colored in brown, red, black, white and grey. Description: SiO2 Onyx is striped, semiprecious variety of the silica mineral agate with white and black, brown or red alternating bands. Its properties are the same as those...

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Gemstones: Obsidian Obsidian gives a clear insight into problems. Color: Obsidian is usually black. Other colors include: brown, gray, red, blue and green, clear, orange, yellow. Description: Obsidian is a natural glass of volcanic origin that is formed by the rapid cooling of viscous lava. Obsidian is extremely rich in silica (about 35 to 80 percent) and is low in water. Obsidian is made of the same minerals as granite but cooled so quickly that they do not have time to crystallize. Obsidian has a glassy lustre and is slightly harder than window glass. Though obsidian is typically jet-black in color, the presence of hematite produces red and brown varieties, and the inclusion...

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Gemstones: Moonstone  Moonstone - brings love into ones life. Color: Moonstones come in a variety of colors, ranging from colorless to white, gray, brown, yellow, orange, green, or pink. Clarity ranges from transparent to translucent. Description: (K, Na) AlSi3O8, Moonstone (also called rainbow moonstone) is soft milky white stone, the most valuable variety of feldspar with an rainbow sheen. Moonstone shows a silvery or bluish iridescence, that is caused by the intergrowth of two different types of feldspar with different efractive indexes. The term moonstone also has been applied to the plagioclase feldspars peristerite and labradorite, which also exhibit iridescence. The name's origin: The moonstone...

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Gemstones: Malachite Malachite -- a talisman for children. Color: Malachite is an opaque, banded stone, the colors in the bands range from a very light green to almost deep green. Description: Cu2CO3(OH)2 , Malachite is a semi-precious stone and also a valuable copper ore, hydrous copper carbonate. It is responsible for the green color of tarnished copper and bronze. Because of its distinctive bright green color and its presence in the weathered zone of nearly all copper deposits, malachite serves as a prospecting guide for that metal. Malachite has been used as an ornamental stone and as a gemstone. The name's origin: Malachite...

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