Recent content by Lefty

A very nicely-coloured pear-cut blue-yellow parti sapphire, originating from Reward (near Rubyvale). The photos do not capture the yellow patch which is in the point of the design. Beautiful intense blue without being over-dark. Teardrop shape makes it a perfect small pendant stone. Stone...

Ah ok, cool.

Had the specimens sent to a gemmologist who confirmed them as garnet (of an overwhelmingy pyrope %) and black spinel. Not sure about the volcanic rock they are embedded in together but the specimen is in mum's garden :D and is very similar to Marty's (the host rock, not the embedded crystals)...

Does epidote fall within the hardness/SG ranges of these specimens?

Those "cocoons" look so much like the ones I have, though the cocooned stones are black spinel and pyrope garnet.

The mystery grows ever deeper.......... :D

In any case, if a gem can be cut from it, Dihusky will cut you a nice one :perfect:

Perhaps they originally were trigonal crystals that have had their profile melted off? Many central QLD sapphires have a distinctly "melted"appearence, with some still showing a crystal shape. Other things I've found from basalt also show a melted appearence when I have seen them/found them in...

The colour reminds me of Dravite tourmaline

Is it possible for basalt magma to have punched through a pre-existing tourmaline pegmatite and carried it to the surface in the magma? I have some very similar basaltic-looking rocks with pyrope garnets, some kind of mica and black spinel embedded in them in near identical-looking little...

Thanks silver :Y:

Hi Tamelean - still around, just get busy these days cutting rocks :D I never found out for certain what it was but I believe it's some type of jasper. It's reasonably hard and takes on a good polish. Did you find yours in an area of volcanic geology?

Damn nice stone Dihusky!! :perfect: :) Does it have hints of orange in it? :o

Cheers Dihusky :Y: :D The colour blew me away when I came across it - it was just peeking out from under the really crappy surface of the rough and only revealed itself after being worked back on the cabbing machine. Most of them are pale in colour - usually very light pink or mauve - so I cut...

Amethyst I hear you ask? Nope - a 5 carat purple Harts range zircon. Most unusual colour, it varies according to light source from a salmon-tinted purple-plum sort of shade to a straight out purple. Also have a pink one there that is much more strongly saturated than most of them, I have high...