Question for a friend.

[Saleheim]

A friend of mine went to a second hand store and for a little money purchased what was labelled as a Aquamarine. It measures 4 centimeters by 1,5 centimeters which is pretty big for a Aquamarine. In it is a tiny bubble that can hardly be seen. Otherwise it's completely clear.

My question would be, how to tell if this is a real Aquamrine?

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s207/Saleheim/Afbeelding046.jpg

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s207/Saleheim/Afbeelding045.jpg

[Fiamma]

I don't honoestly know any hard, fast way to tell but my gut says this isn't a real aquamarine. It's far too perfectly clear. The presence of a bubble says first to me that it's likely cut glass. Also, the way it refracts light looks like that of some sort of glass.

There's a picture of an uncut aquamarine crystal here:

http://www.webmineral.com/specimens/picshow.php?id=122

I would suggest taking it to a jeweler and asking them to have a look.

[Astara Seague]

I tend to agree with Fiamma
Aquamarine s one of my favorite gems, the color is right but..that first picture and the bubble doesnt seem right for real aquamarine

[Saleheim]

Thanks for the input both. On the first picture it refracts light and that also seemed strange to me as I don't recall that Aquamarine does break light. Further info is still welcome though.

[Wolfsong]

Aquamarine is a type of Beryl which ranges in color from sky-blue to blue-green to green-yellow. There are several ways of altering the color of natural Aquamarine but color changes are minimal most of the time. The exeption is Blue-green, at times, can take on a vibrant sky-blue under right temperatures.

It may be glass and if so a simple scratch test would solve that.

What concerns me about the specimen is the little flash of rainbow color in the bottom left corner of the specimen.. if it's not a play of light and is instead caused by something physical on the crystal I would lean towards fake. That's just a guess however.. it's way to small an abnormality to see conclusively in the pic.

[Greybird]

Crystals form slowly. They don't develop round 'air bubbles'. Air bubbles pretty much guarantee something was cooled from a liquid or melted and cooled (ie - resin, glass, molten rock, etc.)

[Fiamma]

Crystals form slowly. They don't develop round 'air bubbles'. Air bubbles pretty much guarantee something was cooled from a liquid or melted and cooled (ie - resin, glass, molten rock, etc.)

Eh, some do once in a while, It's just not very likely. I've got a couple of quartzes that actually have tiny bubbles.

Some crystals even have bubles which contain water- enhydro, I believe is the word for those. The ones I've seen have been quartzes, but I think that they can occur in other crystals.

But for somethign like this, the bubble was definitely a flag, especially when combined with the other mentioned factors.