What Does An Emerald Mine Look Like

North carolina designated the emerald as the official state precious stone in 1973.

What does an emerald mine look like.

This specimen is about 6 5 centimeters in height and has the blue green color and medium dark tone that is common in many emeralds mined in zambia. Emerald crystal from the kagem emerald mine zambia on a matrix of quartz and mica schist. Like cut emeralds raw emeralds can be transparent or translucent a quality that is sometimes called clarity but in the gem trade is referred to as diaphaneity. A greater variety of minerals have been found in north carolina than in any other state more than 300 including some of the most valuable and unique gems in the world.

Cracks look like little hairs or threads on the plane of a facet. Check the emerald with a loupe using reflected light to check for cracks and inclusions. Emerald is a cyclosilicate. Most emeralds are highly included so their toughness resistance to breakage is classified as generally poor.

Raw emeralds like cut emeralds are all green but the shade of green varies from blue green to pale yellow green to a rich forest green. Even if they can be set without damage they aren t likely to last long in the setting. Beryl has a hardness of 7 5 8 on the mohs scale. In the photo this looks a lot like the aventurine green quartz that you can find at the mine but the crystals and color are more like emerald.