Hannah’s Reflections ~The Corundum Family~
Hi, I am Hannah.
I will be looking into Families of Gemstones in more detail.
This week is The Corundum Family.
Here I will give you my reflection and some information on what I have found out about The Corundum Family.
Here is an easy-to-identify poster of The Corundum Family Gemstones:
The chemical formula of corundum is Al2O3 (aluminum oxide) and pure corundum is colorless. All gem colors being caused by small amounts of chemical impurities. For instance chromium gives the rich read of ruby. Sapphire is the term used for all other colored gem corundum (blue, black, white, violet). However sapphire is most closely associated with the blue color due to presence of iron and titanium. Some rare colors sometimes designated with special names, such as Padparadscha for orange-pink and Barklyite for violet colored sapphire. (This does make sense as there are different sapphire colors, but they do not seem like official names due to my research so i haven’t included them in the corundum family)
Vast majority of corundum gemstones are enhanced in some ways. Since 1960s, heat treatment has been a common practice. Heat treatment intensifies the corundum color, improves the uniformity and enhances the clarity by melting some of the silk inclusion that commonly occurs. (I didn’t know that corundum gemstones can be enhanced through heat treatment. Maybe it wasn’t fashionable or beautiful enough in the 60’s for the natural inclusions and natural colors to be part of the gemstones!)
Thank you for reading! I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog :)