About This Quiz
All that glitters is not gold, but it may be a glint from a gemstone that's catching your eye instead. Do you know where the rich and vibrant colors of the stones come from? Or what was the role of precious gems over the course of history? You don't need to, but besides helping you identify the gemstone, you'll learn the grand and colorful history of these beauties throughout the quiz. Don't take our word for it; take the quiz now and brush up on your gemstone knowledge.
Whether you're a history buff who knows that Lapis Lazuli was found in King Tutankhamun's tomb or whether you're into the healing arts and know aquamarine is said to be effective in treating anxiety, the world of gemstones reaches around the world and back through time. It even reaches into the stars with individual gems matched to each horoscope sign.
From the Mayans and Aztecs with their reverence of Jadeite to the same powerful feeling about Jadeite in the Chinese culture, gemstones speak a common language of beauty and purity to us all. You may decide to add a new gem to your collection after you take this dazzling quiz. Let's go!
Lapis is a beautiful royal blue color! Lapis Lazuli is an interesting stone with a royal history. They were highly valued by ancient Egyptians, with stones found in King Tutankhamun's tomb. Lapis Lazuli is mined primarily in Afghanistan!
Since early times, aquamarine has been believed to endow the wearer with foresight, courage, and happiness. It is said to increase intelligence and make one youthful. As a healing stone, it is said to be effective as a treatment for anxiety!
Jadeite has a long history that dates back to the Mayans and Aztecs, who believed that jadeite could cure pain inside the body! The Chinese have also considered jadeite to be precious for hundreds of years and have a saying that goes, "gold is valuable; jade is priceless". Jadeite is believed by the Chinese to strengthen health and promote longevity!
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The name "rhodolite" comes from the Greek word for rose-coloured; "rhodon". The best rhodolite specimens are a vivid raspberry red colour!
Cat's eye gemstones are best shown off cabochon rings! This is because rings generally get more direct light, which allows the cat's eye to be seen!
Named for Labrador, Canada, it is a popular option for jewelry. It is said Labradorite can bring spiritual awakening for those who wear it.
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It's cheap price tag and interesting design make it perfect for jewelry. It is most frequently mined in Brazil.
A high class stone, the Carnelian was believed to be worn and purchased only by the noble class!
Blue is by far the most popular color for sapphires, but they can be almost any color, including yellow, green, white, colorless, pink, orange, brown, and purple!
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Drusy Agate is particularly fragile. These are Agates that have sprouted crystals like a Geode! They come in tons of colors!
Amber is formed through the fossilization of tree resin and is considered a gemstone due to this process.
Vesuvianite is named for deposits discovered at Mount Vesuvius in Italy! (hence the name) The familiar green colored Vesuvianite is mined in the USA and Pakistan!
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Goldstone is made of glass with copper suspended in it or with cobalt or manganese suspended in it! Green Goldstone is made from chromium. This gemstone mimics the appearance of the Galaxy.
This gemstone exhibits vivid "blood-like" iron oxide inclusions, so the reason behind its unusual name can be clearly seen! Bloodstone is composed of chalcedony quartz, which in turn is a microcrystalline quartz variety!
Honey onyx can be bought in large slabs and used as tile or other decorative pieces in a home. Back lighting onyx has become popular amoungst hotels because it gives off a beautiful crystal like glow.
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Ammolite is made of fossilized shells that have opalized over time and is very fragile making it difficult to be used as jewelry. It is more rare than diamonds!
One of the weirdest properties in the gemstone repertoire is something called reversible photochromism! That’s when the color changes from exposure to light, like self-adjusting sunglasses, and then back again after a period in darkness!
Black opal rarest type of Opal making it the most valuable gem of its kind! They are worth over $2300 per carat since they can almost exclusively be found in New South Wales Lightning Ridge Mine.
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The largest diamond ever discovered was called the Cullinan diamond, and weighed in at an amazing 3106 carats, or 1.33 pounds!
Aka Dolphin Stone, Atlantis Stone or Stelfilia's Stone.Larimar is also photosensitive, so it's best to store it away from the sun or heat because it will fade! Larimar is the result of cobalt mixing with fossilized coral! The brighter the blue, the more valuable the stone.
Peridot was a favorite of Egyptian royalty! The gem is green in color, much like the Emerald!
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It received its unusual name in honor of Danish geologist, Andreas Nikolaus Kornerup! The gemstone was discovered in Fiskenaesset (Greenland) in 1884, after the death of Kornerup in 1881!
The variety known as rainbow hematite exhibits colors similar to oil on water! The drusy form of rainbow hematite is quite fragile and is usually backed with a quartz material to increase the stone's durability!
Mamba is a form of tiger iron found in one area of Australia near Mount Brockman. It is a very rare type of tiger iron that contains shades of red, green, yellow, and blue!
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Alexandrite is named for Tsar Alexander II of Russia. It was found in the Ural Mountains in 1830 and costs up to $12,000 per carat.
This gem has sulfur like hackmanite but also incorporates calcium, bound water, and sometimes potassium. One of the more rarely isolated components of lapis lazuli, haüyne is mostly famous for its almost supernatural-looking blue color!
Musgravite comes in at a jaw-dropping $35,000 per carat due to its extreme rarity. There was only a handful of gems until recently when miners all over the world discovered small deposits of it.
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Taaffeite is named after the Australian gemologist, Richard Taaffe. Taaffe discovered the stone in 1945. It is extremely rare with only a few stones ever found, yet only costs $1500-2500 per carat.
Red Beryl can only be commercially mined in the Wah Wah Mountains of Utah. Red Beryl sells for as much as $10,000 per carat making it more expensive than gold and certain diamonds.
In 2004 a purplish pebble turned up in Bangkok in a batch of rough gemstones from Africa. It fell to the floor at one point and split off a fragment, which was saved. After the stones were all cut, a routine series of tests revealed that the purplish one didn’t resemble anything previously known!
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The gemstone Chrysocolla is often confused with turquoise! It is a copper bearing mineral found wherever copper deposits occur!
Orthoceras or Ammonites are fossils! Ammonites are the ancient equivalent to the modern-day chambered Nautilus. These sea faring squids built a chambered shell in which they would pump air into the empty chambers and float at different levels of the ocean in search of food!
It is a type of coal! You’ll find it polished into the shapes of pyramids, cubes, eggs, spheres, various talismans, and, for the budget-minded, freeform tumbled stones. It’s touted as a water purifier, cure-all, evil-repeller, virility-reinvigorator, and so on!
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Citrine is a variety of quartz ranging in colors of yellow, yellow-brown, orange, dark orange-brown, reddish-brown! Citrine crystals can form together with amethyst or smoky quartz to form a bi-colored quartz called ametrine!
Aventurine is a translucent to opaque variety of microcrystalline quartz. Inclusions of mica will give a silverish sheen, while inclusions of hematite give a reddish or grayish sparkle!
Painite was discovered by Arthur C.D. Paine and is known as one of the rarest gems on earth. Its rarity makes it's cost per carat an astonishingly high $50,000-$60,000.
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Tanzanite has limited availability and is forseen to be mined completely within the next 30 years.
It displays a schiller of light which is caused by inclusions. Schiller is a lustrous reflection from planes in a mineral grain and is similar to what is more commonly known as iridescence! The schiller is caused by a feature of the stone's crystal structure!
Named after the Kona Hills south of Marquette County, Michigan where it is found. Kona Dolomite is an ancient rock in which formations of fossil stromatolite (blue-green algae) occur! The stone is between 2.1 to 2.2 billion years old. These stromatolite formations are from some of the first life on earth!
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Malachite is a popular stone which has light and dark green banded areas! Many beautiful specimens of malachite contain special combinations with other minerals!
Opals come in interesting varieties. Boulder or Matrix Opals exist as a mixture into the rock the opal has formed on!
Chrysoprase is a beautiful teal color! Chrysoprase is a variety of chalcedony, which is made from silica and forms a "micro crystalline" structure. This stone gets its green color from Nickel!
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Moonstone belongs to the large mineral family of feldspars. It is an opalescent stone which can range from colorless to blue, peach, green, pink, yellow, brown or gray with a silvery scheen! The appearance resembles the moon!
Quantum-Quattro is in the Silica family! It contains bright medium blues, dark royal blues, dark forest and light greens!
he name "enstatite" comes from the Greek "enstates", which means "adversary". This is because enstatite has a high melting point and was resistant to being treated with a blow torch!
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They are mostly found in the mountains of North Carolina, USA! This earthy colored stone is a combination of two opaque minerals: red jasper and green epidote!
Proustite is nature’s version of photographic film. Freshly excavated, the choicest crystals are transparent and spectacularly red with a metallic luster. But intemperate exposure to light over time makes them cloud up and blacken permanently!
Lolite is a transparent gem-quality form of cordierite, a magnesium iron aluminum cyclosilicate mineral. ... Iolite's strong pleochroism earned it the misleading trade name of 'water-sapphire!'
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Jasper is a beautiful red stone. It is commonly found throughout the world. It's said that Jasper is a great healing crystal.