While most people think of all jade stones as the same mineral, jade in fact consists of two chemically separate minerals. Jade is a stone with a milky hue most popular in green.
Western cultures were aware of jade, but did not identify the gem separately and simply classified jade as a variety of jasper. It is not only the Chinese who appreciate jade. The shade can also be blue-green.Īventurine’s shimmering brilliance makes the stone stand out as a green gem. Green aventurine varies in intensity between light, bright and dark green. While available in other colors, aventurine occurs mostly in green, usually due to the inclusion of fuchsite mica. Jewelers call the stone’s glittery brilliance aventurescence. The green stone gets this shimmering effect from platy inclusions, usually consisting of mica. Moreover, the old description of the stone known today as chrysoprase is even truer of aventurine than it is of the plain green chalcedony.Ī shimmering appearance characterizes aventurine, which is a translucent variety of chalcedony. The ancients called this green gem jasper. While the ancients did not know of aventurine, they were somehow able to describe the green stone in their lapidaries.įor instance, Pliny of 1st-century Rome spoke of a translucent green stone with specks resembling salt. A copper carbonate, malachite is a soft stone, with its hardness reaching only between 3.5 and 4 out of 10 in the Mohs scale. The weakness of malachite lies in its hardness. These bands can be lighter or darker than malachite’s body tone. What differentiates malachite from other green gemstones is its undulating bands. Although opaque, malachite’s color can be quite brilliant and even richer than emerald, which is already reputed to be the most intense of green. Malachite is an opaque stone of a deep green shade.
Romans warmly recommended malachite for signets. 10th Most Beautiful of Green Gemstones 10.
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