Gemstones are treasures from the earth's crust composed of minerals, rocks, and other organic materials. May gemstones are valued by laboratories like the AGL, which stands for Australian Gemology Laboratory.
Once they are valued they are cut with a faceting machine into a certain shape. One of the most popular cuts today is the "dome cut". Opal, Variscite, turquoise, and black onyx are a few gemstones that are sometimes cut in this fashion.
Many gemstones are cut in such a way to reflect back as much light as possible. This means that the gemstone is cut with many different surfaces, all of which catch light in a different way.
There are many different colors and types of gemstones in the world. Some of which are lapis lazuli, prehnite, variscite, onyx, amethyst, quartz, malachite, etc.
The reason why there are so many different colors in gemstones is because when white light passes through an object and reflects the material's color back to our eyes. White light is composed of every color in the rainbow. (ROYGYBIV) When the light goes through a gemstone, some of it is absorbed and the rest(whatever color is left) tells our eyes what color the object is. Some gemstones like quartz or topaz have a clear variety wich means that none of the light is absorbed and other varieties that show up to be purple or blue. This is because that gemstone contains a certain impurity, which sucks up a certain amount of light.
Many gemstones that are produced too pale are heated to make them look better and more attractive to the eye. These fixed versions are no where near as valuable as when a gemstone occurs by perfection!
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