A joint venture mining project has discovered nine rare purple diamonds from a batch of 649 diamonds harvested at the Ekomiak V property in James Bay, Quebec.
Halfway through a dozen steamers at Dave's Last Resort & Raw Bar, George Brock got a funny look on his face. He pulled a bowl under his mouth and spit out something that his wife, Leslie, said sounded like a BB clinking against the plastic. But when the couple bravely peered into the clammy broth Friday afternoon, an iridescent purple pearl winked back at them. One expert says that lucky bite could fetch thousands.
Herkimer diamond is the misnomerous name for double-terminated quartz first discovered in exposed outcrops of dolostone at Little Falls in Herkimer County, New York and the Mohawk River Valley. They became largely recognized after workmen discovered them in large quantities while cutting into the Mohawk River Valley dolostone in the late 1700s. Geologists discovered exposed dolostone in Herkimer County and began mining there. The popularity of mining for double-terminated quartz in the Herkimer County outcroppings is what lead to the name, Herkimer diamonds. Currently, Herkimer diamonds can be found in large quantity in at least Herkimer, Fulton, and Montgomery counties.
The Mineral & Lapidary Museum of Henderson County will kick off a year long 10th Anniversary Year Celebration from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the museum. Children 14 and under who visit the museum will receive a free mineral specimen and drawings for free geodes will be held throughout the day. The museum features a collection of minerals and fossils, including the recently acquired Hendersonville meteorite, and a display of North Carolina minerals. Admission to the museum is free.
Some of nature's most remarkable and unique treasures are set to dazzle the public when they go on display. The Vault, a new gallery at London's Natural History Museum, will showcase a collection of gems, crystals, metals and meteorites from around the world.
The town of Ilakaka in Madagascar did not exist 10 years ago, but now people are flocking there in search of sapphires. Madagascar has one of the largest gem stone deposits on the planet As a result, it has a reputation for being one of the most dangerous places in the country.
Curators at the Natural History Museum in London are to open a display of some of the world's most expensive gems and jewels - even though they had to close a similar exhibition two years ago when police warned that it was about to be raided by an armed gang. The new, permanent exhibition, to be called The Vault, will feature some of the world's most famous emeralds, diamonds, rubies, and other gems, as well as some of the rarest meteorites to fall on the planet, including one piece that scientists have discovered came from Mars. Most of them are considered priceless.
A large piece of bronze jewellery found in the wall of a collapsed Iron Age house provides further evidence of the importance of the ancient Scatness settlement in Shetland, it was claimed last night (Wednesday).
Gathering dust on the floor of an unkempt government office in this town is the shell of what is believed to be the worlds largest pearl. The Pearl of Allah or the Pearl of Lao Tzu, as the gem is now called, has been generally ignored by casual visitors used to seeing much bigger Tridacna shells displayed in local restaurants as adornment or plumbing fixture. Its history as a relic and prized treasure remains to be unearthed and properly told. Local researchers claim to have documented narrative evidence to indicate that the pearl originated here in 1935 and was not handed to a foreigner as a gift, as generally viewed, but actually stashed away to be sold and never returned.
The gem is 9.4 inches long and weighs 14 pounds.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the San Francisco Gem Laboratory values the pearl at $40 million.