Figure 1. Top left: Rubies are mined in a mango orchard in Channapatna, India. Top right: This 15 kg rough ruby is from Subramaniam, in the Indian state of Karnataka. Photos by Pooja Shirole. Bottom ...

GIA offers many opportunities for students to receive a scholarship. Scholarship offerings are made available to assist eligible students in reducing their financial burden and focusing on completing ...

Descending into Peshawar for the first time, a foreign tourist might be surprised to learn that amid the clutter of buildings in this historical city lies an important gem trading center. This market ...

Figure 1. Glass in a silver brooch, hallmark from 1866. Private collection, photo by Jaroslav Hyršl. Tectites are members of a large group of impact glasses, formed by the collision of a meteorite on ...

Diamonds have a long history as a premier gemstone—a natural consequence of their beauty, rarity, and superlative physical properties such as extreme hardness. Diamonds that are mined for use as ...

Carbon is one of the most important elements on our planet, which led the Geological Society of London to name 2019 the Year of Carbon. Diamonds are a main host for carbon in the deep earth and also ...

Gem-quality synthetic or laboratory-grown diamonds are more available in today’s jewelry marketplace than ever before, causing both interest and concern about lab-grown diamonds and whether ...

After witnessing the mining of rubellite tourmaline at the Cruzeiro mine in Brazil, our representative was able to visit the factory in China where the mine’s stones are cut. Photo by Andrew Lucas/GIA ...

North America has a long history of natural pearling owing in part to its very diverse and rich freshwater mussel resources. After the Civil War pearl jewelry gained greater popularity in the United ...

Vietnam is a land of great diversity and beauty. From the hustle and bustle of Ho Chi Minh City to the beauty of Hạ Long Bay and Hoi An (both UNESCO World Heritage Sites), there are innumerable places ...

This raspberry-and mint-colored tourmaline—nicknamed the “Steamboat”—is one of the world’s finest and most valuable mineral specimens. Photo by Duncan Pay ...

Carved single-crystal diamond rings are rare, with few examples to reference (see Spring 2020 Lab Notes, pp. 132–133). But with advancing technology in the laboratory-grown diamond industry, the ...