Emerald is a wonderful green and much admired stone. Due to its stunning beauty, emerald is used in all types of jewelry such as earrings, rings, necklaces, pendants and bracelets. Energy healers often call emerald a very healing stone for relationships, for the heart, and for health. It is a fabulous birthday gift with a special meaning you can add to it.

Emerald Care and How Emerald is -Treated

Medium to dark green beryl which derives its color from chromium and vanadium. Emerald has a hardness rating of 7.5.

Use a soft, dry cloth to clean your Emerald. Avoid sudden temperature changes, household chemicals and ultrasonic jewelry cleaners.

Emerald is often treated with oil to fill fissures and fractures that are characteristic of emerald. Hence, you should never clean an emerald in an ultrasonic cleaner because this oil could be removed or damaged, making the fissures more visible. In addition, do not clean emerald in hot soapy water since it too can remove this oil.

Emerald is often irradiated for clarity.

Reputable dealers will not use the following misleading terms. However, for your protection, I am listing them here:

"African emerald" is really green fluorite from South-West Africa
"Cape Emerald" is really prehnite found in South Africa (not to be confused with true emerald from South Africa).
"Evening Emerald" is really peridot.
"Indian emerald" is really green-dyed quartz.
"Medina Emerald" and "Spanish Emerald" are really green glass.
"Mt. Saint Helens Emerald" is green glass that is man made by fusing volcanic ash.
"Scientific Emerald" is really synthetic stones or paste.
"Uralian Emerald" is really green garnet.
"Zerfass Emerald" is synthetic emerald.

Where Emerald is Found 

Columbia has got to be one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Outside the capital of Bogota are endless green meadows that lead to the imposing Andes, ancestral home of the Incas. Villages and towns dot the whole country, and rivers wend their way in every direction to meet up with greater tributaries that eventually lead into the oceans.

Columbia is one place where the green ones are found---some of the most beautiful emeralds in the world. But, the earliest emerald mines were found in Egypt, and date back to 2000 B.C. The most famous were known as The Mines of Cleopatra's Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt had a large cadre of emeralds and other jewels, but it is said that she loved her emeralds the best. Emerald mines are worked in terraces until the site is depleted. Cleopatra's mines started to run out in 1750 when they were abandoned. A few new lodes were found later, and mining was revived briefly. Finally, the mines were shut down permanently in the 1920's. Deposits can be found in Siberia, Afghanistan, other parts of Africa, Pakistan, Brazil, and Madagascar along with secondary sites around the world. Most of these mines produce emeralds that are a result volcanic activity which contain chromium bearing metamorphic, crystalline schists. These specimens are known as "metamorphic emerald deposits".

What makes the Colombian variety different? The emeralds found at the Chivor Mine near the town of Somondoco east of Bogota and the Muzo Mine situated in the western foothills of the Andes do not come from volcanic activity. They were created by hydrothermal processes that are found in black shale clay dating back 120 million years. They crystallized in veins that are several centimeters in diameter, which were made up mainly of calcite, sodium feldspar albite, and iron sulfite pyrite. Then a whole hydrothermal routine took place. Biogenic masses from sea animals and organisms turned into bitumen which caused oxidation and formed the emeralds. Then beryllium ions were released and passed into the veins and cracks that held the mineral elements and caused the stones to cool as large crystals. When the pyrite entered the emeralds it gave them a rich genuine green color that is rarely found in emeralds from other areas. This natural process that produced the Colombian Emerald cannot be found anywhere else in the world. Columbia generates the worlds highest quality emeralds.

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