Gemstone Gallery

Generally speaking, a gemstone is a stone that is beautiful, rare, and durable (resistant to abrasion, fracturing and chemical reactions). Some minerals can be very beautiful, but they may be too soft and will scratch easily (such as the mineral fluorite). Fluorite is extremely colorful and pretty but has a hardness of only 4 on the Moh's hardness scale and has four perfect cleavage directions, which makes it only an oddity as a cut gem. Others are too common and are given a semi-precious status (such as agate). Most gemstones have good hardness (above 5) and a high index of refraction (the higher the index of refraction the greater the sparkle). All gemstones have some characteristics falling short of perfection though; even the seemingly perfect Diamond has four directions of cleavage. Note that the most common mineral in the Earth's crust is quartz, with a hardness of 7. Since quartz is everywhere (especially in common dirt and dust), any material that is softer may be scratched during ordinary wear.