Gem: Heliodor beryl
Weight: 0.08 ct.
Dimensions: 3 x 2.25 mm
Clarity: VS - slightly silky
Origin: Narragansett, Rhode Island coastal pegmatite
Treatments: None
Comments:
As odd as it is to say, the rarest gemstone I carry is Rhode Island beryl variety heliodor. Until 2009, only one single beryl crystal had ever been found in the state of rhode island. It had come from a road cut sometime in the 1980's (I think anyway). Fast forward to 2009, and my then-digging partner and I found beryl along the coast in Narragansett, Rhode island. We mined it all summer, and the next year I published an article in Rock and Gem magazine about it.
in 2013, the best crystal specimens from the deposit went on display in the Harvard Museum of Natural History, along with some of the best quality minerals in the whole world!
There was very little gem rough from our finds. In reality there was none, but in one or two crystals, there were enough gemmy sections between fractures to TRY to extract a few gems. Luckily enough, I was successful in retrieving 5 pieces of gem rough that produced 5 individual clean gems.
They all turned out right on the line between SI and VS, each containing only a bit of silk. They all have relatively strong, slightly orangey-yellow color.