![]() The aquamarine crystal shown here and cut gems get their blue color and green undertones from iron impurities. ![]() Jeffrey Post, Curator-in-Charge of Gems and Minerals at the museum.Īquamarine is a type of beryl, a mineral composed of beryllium, aluminum, silicon and oxygen. It draws people into the gallery and gives us an opportunity to show how every gem, just like this aquamarine, started out as a mineral crystal that formed in the Earth,” said Dr. “It doesn’t look like most gems people are used to looking at, like ones in pieces of jewelry. Today, it sits in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, enticing visitors to explore the Hall of Geology, Gems, and Minerals and inspiring curiosity about the crystals and minerals resting inside Earth’s rocks. This roughly 4.6-pound gem was cut from a massive 100-pound aquamarine crystal unearthed in the late 1980s. One of the largest - if not best - example is the Dom Pedro Aquamarine. But in addition to holding clues about Earth’s mineral and geologic processes, pegmatites deposits are known for containing diverse and richly colored mineral crystals that can be cut into spectacular gems. Hurlbert, Smithsonian)įor those who study what happens when magma and crust collide, igneous rocks like pegmatites are a welcome sight. It weighs around 4.6 pounds, making it one of the largest aquamarine gemstones in the world. Dom Pedro aquamarine was cut from a 100-pound crystal that was mined in the late 1980s.
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