Using customized, image-based measurement systems to quantify the effect of fluorescence on the color, brightness, and transparency of gem diamonds viewed in both face-up and table-down orientations.

An overview of the Summer 2021 Gems & Gemology content.

Documents Namak Mandi’s transformation from a salt market to one of Pakistan’s primary gem trading centers, with a look at the commercial activities taking place today.

Inspired fashioning showcases mobile inclusions in a polished quartz specimen, reminiscent of an hourglass.

The optical phenomenon of iridescence creates a beautiful pearly rainbow effect in an abalone shell.

Inclusions can be found in a variety of different gemstones; they create a window that allows the viewer to picture a stone’s formation history.

Raman analysis confirms that the yellow-orange to deep red inclusion in a faceted benitoite is indeed neptunite.

A CVD laboratory-grown diamond with a fraudulent GIA inscription is submitted to the Antwerp lab.

Natural opal beads displaying vibrant play-of-color are strung together to create a remarkable necklace.

A beautiful melo pearl is accidentally served up for lunch within its host gastropod.

A clarity-enhanced rhodonite stuns with its exceptional size, transparency, and vivid color.

Phosphorescent-based screening initially results in a rare mixed-type natural diamond falsely testing as laboratory-grown.

Analyzes a group of 23 freshwater “Edison” pearls (a trade name referring to near-round freshwater cultured pearls, usually shell bead cultured) using various gemological and advanced instrumental techniques.

Provides a visual guide to GIA’s approach to classifying and describing pearls.

Analysis of eight European freshwater pearls of known provenance gives pearl specialists the opportunity to add greatly to GIA’s identification database.

Pearls from Lake Biwa mussels, left alone for 14 years, make an intriguing preliminary study of time-frame effects.

The authors recently examined a polished quartz disk with an unusual rutile (TiO2) inclusion.

In previous Micro-World columns, the Quarterly Crystal entry has showcased exceptional crystalline specimens masterfully crafted by geological forces.

A most unusually-shaped olivine inclusion in a faceted diamond takes a three-spoke form.

A rare transparent and near-colorless sodalite contains two-phase inclusions linking it to its ancient formation.