January 24 Through February 4—TUCSON, ARIZONA: Annual show
Welcome to the GemologyOnline.com Forum
A non-profit Forum for the exchange of gemological ideas
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 5:30 pm

All times are UTC - 4 hours




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 147 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1 ... 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10  Next
Author Message
 Post subject: Re: Usual and unusual gemstones and inclusions
PostPosted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 1:57 pm 
Offline
Valued Contributor

Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2015 5:22 pm
Posts: 170
Location: Lachine, Quebec
Small flat fancy cut tanzanian beryl with hematite inclusion, just 1.11 ct.

Image

Except of dendrite-like hematite inclusions and some other I found one funny tine crystal. I presumed it is apatite, but maybe I am wrong, as more and more I look at this crystal... If to cut off the top, it looks almost the perfect cube. So I have doubt on my identification, another suggestion is fluorite...

Crystal is very well shaped, transparent, has some other stuff precipitated on facets, probably hematite again. Also crystal has its own inclusion, with is under max magnification available with my microscope (320x, can not be photographed) looks like other crystal inside of "large" one.. Of course - no idea what is that secondary inclusion in the inclusion as object is very very small. "Large" crystal has length about 0.095 mm, small one is about 20 times smaller, but still somehow visible near the top of the crystal (on the left on picture). Orange area behind this inclusion is hematite. On the right hand of this crystal is visible not well focused browns inclusion, I presume some kind of mica.

This photography was one of the fist I made working with my new (at that time) microscope, just learning the process of photomicrography as a process, and first with such a high magnification factor (200x) I did not deleted after all... Picture has been stacked just form 13 original shots, I made mach more, but almost all has been deleted as very very difficult to move focus while working on such a small object with such a high magnification..

Original has been taken under diffused transmitted light and side 45 degrees fiber-optic illumination. Field of View is 1.15 mm

Image

_________________
All stones are alike, all stones are precious; but man sees only a few of them...
Maurice Maeterlinck


Last edited by GSK on Tue Aug 18, 2015 3:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Usual and unusual gemstones and inclusions
PostPosted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 2:43 pm 
Offline
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Thu Dec 13, 2007 3:42 pm
Posts: 4091
Location: the Netherlands
Nice, well done, especially at that high a mag!


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Usual and unusual gemstones and inclusions
PostPosted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 3:13 pm 
Offline
Valued Contributor

Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2015 5:22 pm
Posts: 170
Location: Lachine, Quebec
Thank you, Tim!

_________________
All stones are alike, all stones are precious; but man sees only a few of them...
Maurice Maeterlinck


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Usual and unusual gemstones and inclusions
PostPosted: Wed Sep 02, 2015 10:49 am 
Offline
Valued Contributor

Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2015 5:22 pm
Posts: 170
Location: Lachine, Quebec
A few more pictures of same beryl and its hematite and calcite inclusions.

Image
Transmitted diffused light, 100x, FoV 2.1 mm

Image
Reflected fluorescent light, 40x, FoV 6.05 mm

Image
Reflected fluorescent light, 40x, FoV 6.05 mm

Image
Reflected fluorescent light, 100x, FoV 2.35 mm

Image
Reflected fluorescent light, 40x, FoV 6.05 mm

_________________
All stones are alike, all stones are precious; but man sees only a few of them...
Maurice Maeterlinck


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Not identifyed inclusions in sapphire
PostPosted: Fri Sep 04, 2015 2:46 pm 
Offline
Valued Contributor

Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2015 5:22 pm
Posts: 170
Location: Lachine, Quebec
A few inclusions in sapphire I can not make my mind what is that. Looks like sapphire has been heat treated, but even this can not say for sure. Inclusions showing tension halos, but crystal structure of inclusions looks safe, not melted. Also structures are different, one looks like cubic, other like rhomboid...

So any suggestions are welcomed.

Blue sapphire 1.7 ct, Pailin (Cambodia) origin.

Image
Dark field illumination, 80x, FoV 3.0mm

Image
Transmitted polarized light, 200x, FoV 1.15 mm

Image
Transmitted polarized light, 200x, FoV 1.15 mm

Image
Transmitted polarized light, 200x, FoV 1.15 mm

Image
Reflected + FO polarized light, 200x, FoV 1.15 mm

_________________
All stones are alike, all stones are precious; but man sees only a few of them...
Maurice Maeterlinck


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Usual and unusual gemstones and inclusions
PostPosted: Tue Sep 08, 2015 6:39 pm 
Offline
Valued Contributor

Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2015 5:22 pm
Posts: 170
Location: Lachine, Quebec
Orange and rose sapphires from (probably) Sri Lanka.

Orange looks like heated but I don't see jet evidence of diffusion. Stone is very bright and intensive colored, and has inclusion I can not identify. It his hexagonal di-pyramidal form with flat-cut tops. The grounds of the pyramids both fall on a cross-layer fluid inclusions of "fingerprint". natural facets of crystal do not look like touched by high temperature, so I dues it is something with quite high melting point, or I made a mistake thinking about high-temperature heating of this sapphire.

Image
Dark field illumination, 100x, FoV 2.30 mm

Pink sapphire shows some internal details made me to feel completely lost. I can not even make my mind if this stone is heated or not. Picture shows very small area with a few different types of inclusions. "Fingerprints", partially looks like not heated, partially like heated. Crystals with bubbles inside, but can not call them negative, so maybe that bubbles are also liquids? Growth tubes with liquid objects, and very glassy looking inclusion with typical glassy surface..

Image
Dark field illumination, polarized light, 200x, Fov 1.10 mm

I hope to hear suggestions...

_________________
All stones are alike, all stones are precious; but man sees only a few of them...
Maurice Maeterlinck


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Usual and unusual gemstones and inclusions
PostPosted: Tue Sep 08, 2015 9:18 pm 
Offline
Gold Member

Joined: Tue Jul 02, 2013 9:00 am
Posts: 1322
Location: Wylie Texas but in Alaska for a while
so suggestions, but a =D>

very very nice pictures, thank you for sharing them.

Makes me want to pick up a new hobby.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Usual and unusual gemstones and inclusions
PostPosted: Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:24 pm 
Offline
Valued Contributor

Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2015 5:22 pm
Posts: 170
Location: Lachine, Quebec
Friend of mine hunting gemstones in Asia always remembers about my "love with inclusions" and often sending me stones which can not be sold out except some one chose for his inclusions collection or as sample for learning purpose.. So mostly these stones stay in my own "inclusion collection"... :)

One of such samples - Cambodian sapphire. After reading and re-reading of Atlas of Inclusions, I came to first suggestion that black crystals in this sapphire - graphite. Opaqueness, very low luster and no halos.. But graphite should be hexagonal dipyramidal, but this one on second picture clearly visible as octahedral, so I changed my suggestion to magnetite.

Image
Dark field illumination, diffused light, 40x, FoV 6.05 mm

Image
Dark field illumination, diffused light, 100x, FoV 2.35 mm

_________________
All stones are alike, all stones are precious; but man sees only a few of them...
Maurice Maeterlinck


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Usual and unusual gemstones and inclusions
PostPosted: Wed Nov 18, 2015 7:23 pm 
Offline
Valued Contributor

Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2015 5:22 pm
Posts: 170
Location: Lachine, Quebec
Something new never seen, unexpected in unexpected... I got a bag of garnets, and in this bag were some garnets, but also I found 3 zircons there... One zircon shows me something I don't understand what is it...

1. Stone itself, 8.95 carat reddish orange, or other way to say cranberry-brown. Very clean, some visible imperfections under microscope appeared to be a dirt! I tried to remove some, and it has gone...

Image

Inclusions were almost not visible under slight magnification, only I mentioned there is something there when got up 80x.

Photographing of these became very challenging. This zircon in not affected by metamictization and very strongly birefringent, so it took a while to catch correct position of polarizer. Also stone is dark enough, and with FO-lighting inclusions were almost not visible, so had to use only standard microscope source of transmitted light and very low speed of shots, 10 sec. Also cats really wanted to help me and hardly tried to help...
smile emoticon

Image
Transmitted polarized light, 120x, FoV 2.00 mm

Image
Transmitted polarized light, 200x, FoV 1.15 mm

Both pictures has been corrected a bit for brightness and contrast.

What are these inclusions I don't know. Not-metamict metamorphic zircon can have needle like inclusions: rutile, sillimanite, actinolite. Which of those can be intersected under 90 degrees angle? As I know - not rutile... Due its very small sizes and very complex optical nature of zircon I can not see the form of those needles even under 320x... Also it can not be a "boomerang" due their origination only in green metamict zircons from Sri Lanka...

So question is opened and not answered...

_________________
All stones are alike, all stones are precious; but man sees only a few of them...
Maurice Maeterlinck


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Usual and unusual gemstones and inclusions
PostPosted: Wed Nov 18, 2015 11:00 pm 
Offline
Gold Member

Joined: Wed Sep 02, 2015 10:52 pm
Posts: 1131
Location: Central Queensland, Australia
Very interesting stuff. Would love to have the skills and equipment to examine my stones to this degree.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Usual and unusual gemstones and inclusions
PostPosted: Thu Nov 19, 2015 1:24 am 
Offline
Gemology Online Veteran
User avatar

Joined: Sat May 22, 2010 2:51 am
Posts: 755
Location: South Africa
GSK wrote:
What are these inclusions I don't know. Not-metamict metamorphic zircon can have needle like inclusions: rutile, sillimanite, actinolite. Which of those can be intersected under 90 degrees angle? As I know - not rutile...
Zircon is tetragonal, so why should rutile needles not intersect at 90 degrees in zircon? Surely the host's crystallography determines the orientation of exsolved inclusions.


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Usual and unusual gemstones and inclusions
PostPosted: Thu Nov 19, 2015 9:34 am 
Offline
Valued Contributor

Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2015 5:22 pm
Posts: 170
Location: Lachine, Quebec
Duncan Miller, that's what is "hidebound thinking" using usual standards (I'm talking about myself ...) and luck of good deep knowledge in mineralogy (again about myself) + end of very long day after over 50 stones photographing when was not able to think about simple things... :)

Thank you.

Still question - if 2 needles of rutile intersected at 90 degrees - ok, understand, possible because of crystal structure of zircon. But if one rutile needle has been grown from other, they are not just intersected, but connected, this is also possible? Need to find information and read about that, I was thinking that rutile needles always connected at 120 dgr... Here I see some setes of 2 needles, connected (not intersected) at 90 and at 120...

_________________
All stones are alike, all stones are precious; but man sees only a few of them...
Maurice Maeterlinck


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Usual and unusual gemstones and inclusions
PostPosted: Sat Nov 28, 2015 12:58 pm 
Offline
Platinum Member

Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 4:40 pm
Posts: 2667
Location: South Dakota
In keeping with the title...
I find this quartz crystal utterly fascinating. It's been polished to remove some imperfections......even so...damn
papagoite/ajoite, hematite, kaolinite! from South Africa


Attachments:
278h344-02772120014417161358277.jpg
278h344-02772120014417161358277.jpg [ 97.31 KiB | Viewed 1382 times ]

_________________
MrAmethystguy ~ Some jokes just fluorite over my head!
Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Usual and unusual gemstones and inclusions
PostPosted: Sat Nov 28, 2015 6:16 pm 
Offline
Valued Contributor

Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2015 5:22 pm
Posts: 170
Location: Lachine, Quebec
Yammy...

_________________
All stones are alike, all stones are precious; but man sees only a few of them...
Maurice Maeterlinck


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
 Post subject: Re: Usual and unusual gemstones and inclusions
PostPosted: Mon Nov 30, 2015 12:18 am 
Offline
Site Admin
User avatar

Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2005 12:22 pm
Posts: 21602
Location: San Francisco
Jason Barrett wrote:
In keeping with the title...
I find this quartz crystal utterly fascinating. It's been polished to remove some imperfections......even so...damn
papagoite/ajoite, hematite, kaolinite! from South Africa


:shock: Wow....do you have anything empirical to add for us geeks?


Top
 Profile  
Reply with quote  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 147 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1 ... 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10  Next

All times are UTC - 4 hours


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 12 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group
Gemology Style ported to phpBB3 by Christian Bullock