Please help identify these stones

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Apr 12, 2017
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Hey,

I'm new to the site and new to fossicking. A friend and I were fossicking and we managed to find a decent amount of tiny stones. We went there after coming across another person who was fossicking there, and he mentioned that he had found sapphires and rubies.

However, I'm not sure what we actually found. I'm guessing they are garnets and a few sapphires, but I could be completely wrong. Any help identifying these stones would be much appreciated :)

1491989216_my_gems.jpg


- AgentOmega
 
Hi AgentOmega.

It's not usually possible to tell with 100% certainty from a photo. However, from left to right the stones look like red zircons, 2 blue sapphires and a very dark sapphire or something else (perhaps black spinel), a yellow-green sapphire, the cloudy one looks like a piece of quartz and the far right one could be quartz, topaz or feldspar.

I suppose it's possible the red stones could be rubies seeing as there are apparently sapphires there (chemically, sapphires and rubies are the same mineral - corundum - it's simply that ruby is the name for red coloured corundum while all other colours are referred to as sapphire) though I'd be thinking zircons would be more likely.

Cheers.
 
Love the colour of those red ones, such a deep consistant red ( zircon in my hunting grounds often have some washout of colour) and the yellow-green looks good enough to cut. :cool:

Couldn't add any more to Lefty's comment originally but on reflection - the hardness test may give you an idea if they are rubies or zircon. If a blue sapphire scratches them they are not rubies.
 

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