Martian Rocks: Corundum. Chromium. Opal. Chalcedony. Quartz. And now natural glass formed by meteorite impacts.

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‘Very Unexpected’
NASA Rover Zapped a Rock on Mars And Found a Gemstone Surprise

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NASA’s Mars rovers have been assembling a rather unexpected collection of gem materials on the Red Planet.

But before anyone starts planning a gem-buying trip to Mars, we should probably take a closer look at what has actually been found.

Recent headlines have suggested that NASA has discovered rubies, sapphires and opals on Mars. But what the scientists have actually identified is a little different.

We’ve Been Following the Martian Gem Hunt

Back in 2023, when headlines began announcing the discovery of opal on Mars, the Roskin Gem News Report went directly to the scientists involved to ask the question we gemologists wanted answered:

So what kind of opal did they actually find?

Travis Gabriel, lead author of the research on opal-A-rich rocks in Gale Crater, told the RGNR:

“To my knowledge, I don’t believe the opal-A-rich rocks
in Gale crater have ever been identified as ‘precious’ or having play-of-color.”

His colleague Albert Yen was equally cautious. The material they had examined was probably too impure to cut and polish, although he did leave open the intriguing possibility that purer material might exist somewhere on Mars.

Tap here for our 2023 RGNR feature on opal on Mars

Then, in May of this year, we were back on Mars again.

This time, reports were suggesting rubies and sapphires.

Our response was pretty much the same:

Not so fast.

Tap here for our May 2026 RGNR feature, “Rubies on Mars?”

Now there is more research to consider — enough, in fact, to take another look inside the Martian gem box.

Corundum on Mars

While exploring the rim of Jezero Crater, NASA’s Perseverance rover encountered several pale rocks that didn’t initially look particularly extraordinary.

Then scientists turned to SuperCam.

Mounted on Perseverance’s mast, SuperCam can analyze rocks from a distance using several techniques, including laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), Raman spectroscopy and time-resolved luminescence spectroscopy.

It was that last technique that produced the surprise.

Researchers found distinct luminescence signatures from Cr³⁺ — trivalent chromium — in three light-colored rocks. Their measurements were consistent with chromium-bearing corundum (Al₂O₃).

The findings were presented in March at the 57th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in SuperCam Identifies Corundum in Jezero Crater, Mars, Using Time-Resolved Luminescence Spectroscopy, by A.M. Ollila and colleagues. The researchers reported corundum in several light-toned “float rocks” and suggested that impact metamorphism is a probable explanation for its formation.

Read the LPSC 2026 research abstract

The discovery quickly made its way into Scientific American which asked whether Mars could be hiding a stash of rubies, opals and other gems, while scientists quoted in the story offered the same caution that we did.

Read the Scientific American feature on gemstones on Mars

So…

Rubies on Mars?

Okay, so corundum is, of course, the mineral species to which ruby and sapphire belong.

And chromium is also the chromophore famously responsible for the red color of ruby.

Good so far!

Corundum. + Chromium.

Ruby!

Well…

Is it red?

Back to reality, having chromium-bearing corundum does not, by itself, establish that the material would be classified as ruby in the gemological sense.

The Martian corundum has not been dug out of the rock, placed under a microscope and examined… for color. We’re not talking about crystals large enough to see with the naked eye. These are tiny mineral grains being identified remotely through their spectroscopic signatures.

So for the moment, Mars has chromium-bearing corundum.

“Ruby” will have to wait.

Meanwhile, There Really Is Opal on Mars

While we were applying the brakes to the ruby story, the evidence for Martian opal was getting better.

In 2025, researchers using Perseverance’s SuperCam reported silica-rich rocks — described by the researchers as “cobbles” — in Jezero Crater composed of opal or chalcedony, along with well-crystallized quartz.

That last one was significant.

The research, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, represented the first unambiguous identification of quartz-dominated rocks on the Martian surface.

Making Martian Quartz

The different forms of silica also told scientists something about how these materials may have formed.

The researchers proposed that they were products of an ancient hydrothermal system, representing different depths and temperatures of silica precipitation. And they raised another intriguing possibility: the hydrothermal activity could have been triggered by the impact that formed Jezero Crater itself.

Read the 2025 IRAP feature, “Quartz discovered for the first time on Mars”

Read the original 2025 Earth and Planetary Science Letters research

Then, in April 2026, the opal story became considerably more specific.

Researchers reported the in-situ detection of opal-A in the Bills Bay abrasion patch in Jezero Crater.

Using Perseverance’s SHERLOC Raman spectrometer and comparing its results with terrestrial opals of different structural types, researchers identified the material as Martian opal-A.

And what exactly is Opal-A? Blame the mineralogists for making this a little more complicated than the familiar gemological distinction between precious and common opal. Opal-A is a structural classification of opal, not a gemological quality designation. Terrestrial precious opal can itself be Opal-A.

So yes, there really is Opal-A on Mars.

Precious opal?

We still haven’t seen the play-of-color.

Read the 2026 JGR: Planets paper, “In Situ Detection of Opal-A in Jezero Crater, Mars”

But How Did All of This Get There?

That’s where the Martian gem story becomes particularly interesting.

Earth provides a remarkable assortment of geological environments for forming gem minerals.

Plate tectonics drives rocks deep into the crust and mantle and brings others back toward the surface. Magmas cool. Mountains form. Rocks undergo tremendous changes in temperature and pressure. Hydrothermal fluids circulate through fractures.

But Mars is different.

It does not have Earth’s system of active plate tectonics.

However, it does have something else in abundance.

Impact craters.

And Jezero is one of them.

The researchers studying the silica-rich rocks proposed that hydrothermal processes were active in and around Jezero and may have been triggered by the impact that formed the crater.

The researchers studying the corundum also believe impact metamorphism is a probable explanation, although they caution that its formation mechanism has not yet been conclusively determined.

But wait, there’s more!

Glass!

Natural Glass on Mars

In July 2026, NASA reported that Perseverance had examined a roughly 245-foot-thick — 75-meter — sequence of extraordinarily ancient rocks exposed along the outer rim of Jezero Crater.

The rocks are probably more than 3.9 billion years old.

And inside them were tiny, dark, glassy beads.

Scientists call them spherules.

A spherule is essentially a small rounded or spherical particle. In this case, researchers found that the shapes and distribution of the glassy beads were most consistent with solidified droplets of molten Martian rock produced by impacts.

Volcanoes can produce glassy droplets too, but the abundance and repeated occurrence of these spherules throughout the rock sequence led the researchers to conclude that repeated meteorite impacts were the more likely explanation.

In other words, we’re looking at natural Martian impact glass.

Read NASA/JPL’s July 2026 feature, “Perseverance Rover Reads Record of Ancient Mars Impacts”

Read the original JGR: Planets research on repeated impacts at Jezero Crater

Now, for anyone in the gem and mineral world, natural glass formed during a meteorite impact should sound rather familiar.

Tektites.

And perhaps the most famous gem material in the tektite family:

Moldavite.

Which brings us to an important new gemological discovery of our own.

Introducing Jezerite — The Hottest New Gem from Mars

Not available in Tucson. Not yet.

Before anyone contacts their favorite gem dealer, we should make one thing perfectly clear:

We just made that up. There is no Jezerite – well, at least not yet.

Perseverance found glassy impact spherules. The researchers do not call them tektites, and they certainly don’t call them moldavite.

Moldavite is a specific natural impact glass associated with the Ries impact in what is now Germany and its Central European strewn field.

We can’t simply take the name moldavite and apply it to impact glass from somewhere else — particularly somewhere approximately 140 million miles away.

And the Martian glassy spherules aren’t necessarily tektites in the strict sense either. So we’ll stick with the terminology used by the planetary scientists:

Glassy impact spherules.

But Jezerite has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?

The Martian Gem Box

So what have we collected so far?

Quartz

Chalcedony

Opal-A

Chromium-bearing corundum

and

Natural impact glass

Not a bad assortment for a planet where Perseverance was sent primarily to investigate ancient geology, search for signs of past microbial life and collect samples for possible return to Earth.

There is, however, an important distinction running through all of this.

Finding a mineral that happens to be a familiar gem material is not the same thing as finding a gemstone.

There is quartz on Mars.

Nobody has reported rock crystal or amethyst.

There is opal.

Nobody has reported whether it is precious or common opal.

There is chromium-bearing corundum.

Nobody has demonstrated that it is ruby.

And there are natural glassy spherules produced by impacts.

There is, regrettably, no Jezerite.

At least not officially.

The Real Treasure May Be the Geology

As much fun as the gemstone comparisons are, the real importance of these discoveries isn’t whether anything on Mars could ever be cut and polished.

These minerals are telling scientists about the history of the planet.

Quartz, chalcedony and opal point toward ancient water and hydrothermal activity.

Corundum may record the extraordinary pressures and temperatures associated with ancient impacts.

And those little beads of natural glass are helping scientists reconstruct repeated impact events that occurred more than 3.9 billion years ago.

Even the opal may have significance far beyond gemology. Silica-rich materials can preserve evidence of past environments — and potentially biosignatures — exceptionally well.

Which makes the Martian gem box considerably more scientifically valuable than anything we might put into a showcase.

No Gem Expedition Scheduled

There is one final practical obstacle for anyone contemplating the Martian gem trade.

Perseverance has collected selected rock cores and other samples intended for possible future study on Earth. If Martian material eventually does make the trip back, scientists could investigate these minerals using laboratory instruments far more powerful than anything a rover can carry.

And for gemologists, that raises some tantalizing questions.

What exactly does Martian corundum look like?

How much chromium does it contain?

What color is it?

What does Martian opal look like under magnification?

And what exactly are the composition and structure of those little beads of impact glass?

Someday, perhaps, we’ll get some answers.

But for readers already contemplating a trip to Jezero Crater, we should offer one final caveat:

There are currently no trips to Mars that include a gemological laboratory.

And Jezerite will definitely not be available in Tucson.