Together with diamonds and pearls, it has also become an indispensable ornament on the crowns and dresses of the kings of the British Empire and the czars of Russia. Sapphire has been one of the top five gemstones in the world and a precious gemstone variety since it entered the people's society in the last hundred years.
Main features: The biggest feature of sapphire is uneven color, and flat bands and growth lines with different shades arranged in parallel hexagonal columns can be seen. Poly-sheet has the development of bimorph, and the bimorph pattern of louver is common. Cleavage often cleaves along double crystal planes. Dichroism is strong. In addition to the above characteristics, sapphires all over the world have their own characteristics due to different places of origin.
Main producing areas: Sapphire is produced in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Laos, Cambodia, Changle in Shandong, Hainan in China, and Sun Shi Mountain in Jiangjin, Chongqing. The rarest producing area belongs to Kashmir sapphire, and Myanmar is the best place to produce sapphire at present.
China sapphire
The crystal is hexagonal barrel-shaped, with large particles, generally above 1cm, up to several kilograms. Sapphire is mostly indigo, blue, green and yellow, which is close to charcoal black because of its high iron content. There are few inclusions in sapphire, and besides black solid inclusions, fingerprint inclusions can also be seen. There are no spun silk rutile and dispersed liquid inclusions. In sapphire, the straight band is obvious and the polycrystalline twin is not developed. The growth lines of parallel hexagonal cylinders can be seen at the outer edge of large crystals. Among them, Shandong (Changle) sapphire has the best quality.
Sri Lankan sapphire
Its inclusions are as follows: spun silk inclusions are similar to Burmese sapphires, but the difference is that the fibers are thin and long, which can show six starlight; Liquid inclusions are distributed in amorphous layers or fingerprints; Solid inclusions include zircon, apatite and biotite.
Sapphire from Kashmir, India
The color is cornflower blue, which is purplish indigo. The colors are bright and bright. There is a milky white reflection effect with foggy inclusions. It is a high-quality sapphire variety.
Australian sapphire
Australia is rich in sapphires. However, due to the high iron content, the color of the gem is dark. Most of them are dark blue, yellow, green or brown close to carbon black. Dust inclusion. Its gem features are the same as those of Thailand and China, and it can only be used after it changes color.
Sapphire from Myanmar ancient animal husbandry
It is produced in the same mining area as ruby, and has the same characteristics except different colors. The inclusions are as follows: spun silk rutile inclusions, parallel hexagonal cylinders arranged closely, intersecting at 60 degrees and 120 degrees. If the contents of vertical spun silk are cut, six or twelve stars can be displayed after being polished into arc-shaped gems; The area of bubbles in the gap of fingerprint liquid content is small, about 30%; Solid inclusions such as corundum, spinel, uranium pyrochlore and apatite are common.
Thai sapphire
It's black blue and gray blue. There is no spun silk inclusion in the crystal, but the fingerprint liquid inclusion is developed. The most striking feature is that there are lotus-leaf cracks around the black solid inclusions. Three groups of agglomerates have twins and cleavage cracks along twin planes.
The above introduction about sapphire, I hope it will help you understand sapphire!
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