“One of the beauties of working with gemstones is that each time you peer into a stone, you get a glimpse of the universe held within. When we first examined the scene in a star sapphire, we were delighted with the view. A feature that immediately stands out is the triangular crystal, which displays terraced growth features and iridescence on the surface when illuminated with a fiber-optic light. Analysis with micro Raman revealed that this crystal is apatite.” – Billie Hughes
Photomicrograph by E. Billie Hughes; field of view 6 mm.
What makes the scene even more stunning is the way the crystal seems to float over a cloud of rutile silk. This same silk is what creates asterism in the stone, an untreated star sapphire.
E. Billie Hughes, FGA, is a co-founder of Bangkok-based Lotus Gemology, a respected gemological laboratory and educational resource.
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