| Musgravite is one of the newest and most rare gemstones in the world. This gem material is known to be very difficult to be distinguished from taaffeite, which is also a rare variety, and its identification methods needed to be established.Musgravite is a silicate mineral whose main ingredients are beryllium (Be), magnesium (Mg) and aluminium (Al), and belongs to the same mineral group as taaffeite. Both gems had been thought polytype (crystals possessing layered structure; each of the structure is the same but their cycle along the layering direction is different), however, from studies to date they are now assumed independent varieties that have different chemical composition and crystal structure. It was named ‘musgravite’after the area Musgrave in Australia from where the material was first found. The musgravite was later found also in Greenland and Madagascar, but neither of them produces gem quality material. Two pieces of faceted gem-quality musgravite from Sri Lanka were reported firstly in 1993. Several reports of identifying gem-quality musgravite followed that, but the number of identified musgravite only reaches to eight in total so far, and most of them are less than 1 carat in size. |
.jpg "Musgravite 5.93ct 12.1mm x 9.6mm, Eye Clean Oval")