Australia's national gemstone is the opal, a stone famous across the world for its brilliant colours. In Indigenous stories, a rainbow created the colours of the opal when it touched the earth. Opal, also known to Indigenous people as the fire of the desert, is a powerful symbol of Australia's arid interior.
Australia is the world's biggest producer of diamonds and opals and major supplier of sapphire, ruby, emerald, garnet, topaz and jade has also been mined in Australia. Information on some of Australia's gemstones can be found at Google Arts and Culture - Gems from the Safe.
Sapphires are a longstanding staple
Most of the sapphire in Australia is blue, or very dark with a greenish color. This kind of sapphire is only found in Australia.
The most popular gemstones that are found in Australia are opals, sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds. However, there are other gemstones that can be found as well.
Not only is Mookaite Jasper completely unique to Australia, it also beautifully resembles the outback with its vivid colours of red, yellow, cream, brown and burgundy/purple. It is the perfect Australian crystal and was first mined in the mid-1960s.
However, if you want a truly scarce Australian gem, then the black opal is one of the finest. The black opal is mined in Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, and it is famed for its blend of eye-catching colours. Black opals are so rare that they can cost as much as $2,335 per carat.
Musgravite – Estimated $35,000/carat
Musgravite is one of the newest and most rare gemstones in the world. Musgravite is a silicate mineral whose main ingredients are beryllium (Be), magnesium (Mg) and aluminum (Al). It was named 'musgravite' after the area Musgrave in Australia from where the material was first found.
Opal is found around the world (Brazil, Mexico, Honduras and the western US) however Australia produces 95% of the world's precious opal and it is our official national gemstone.
Painite : Not just the rarest gemstone, but also the rarest mineral on earth, Painite holds the Guinness World Record for it. After its discovery in the year 1951, there existed only 2 specimens of Painite for the next many decades. By the year 2004, there were less than 2 dozens known gemstones.
Australia. Quartz is found all over Australia, both as crystals and as fine-grained material. Rock crystal and smoky quartz are found in all states, while amethyst and citrine are less common.
Australian black opal is the rarest type of opal. The majority is found only in one small place in the world and its unique nature of carbon and iron oxide trace elements give it its black body tone. There is simply no other region that produces the same quality as Lightning Ridge.
Jade in South Australia
Jade deposits near Cowell on Eyre Peninsula are among the largest known nephrite jade deposits in the world.
Chrysoprase is aptly named from the Greek 'chrysos' (gold) and 'prason' (leek), due to its beautiful greens. Coveted globally for its fine quality, Australian Chrysoprase deftly combines beautiful apple-greens with a delicate translucency reminiscent of Imperial Jade.
Sri Lanka is one of the top gem bearing countries in the world with the highest density of gems in the world and is a global sourcing destination for over 75 varieties of precious and semi-precious gemstones.
Australia's largest and most economic diamond deposit has been the Argyle Mine, in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. It started production in the early 1980s and was, for some years, the world's largest diamond mine by volume. It produces a large quantity of stones each year for the international market.
Over 95% of the world's precious opal comes from Australia, and opal is Australia's national gemstone. While several different types of opal are present in nature, there are two main varieties – precious opal and common opal or potch.
The Rarest Birthstones
For example, April's diamond, though pricey, is less rare than rubies, emeralds, and alexandrite. While on the topic of alexandrite, this is currently the rarest gemstone on the birthstone list and can come at quite a cost. Black opals are also incredibly rare.
Tanzanite is a shocking 1000 times more rare than a diamond. Discovered for the first time in 1967 and only found in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, these gemstones go for about $1,500 per carat. Tanzanite has the ability to change color depending on the angle of light it is in.
Red Diamonds
Diamonds are much more expensive than gold. However, red diamonds are extremely rare on our planet. Only 30 of them are currently known, and most of them do not weigh more than half a carat (about 0.1 grams). They are worth a lot, and 1 gram can cost around $ 5 million.
Emeralds have been commercially mined in Australia in three main deposits Poona and Menzies in Western Australia, and Emmaville in New South Wales. The emeralds are usually in rocks among layers of other minerals such as mica.
Ruby is usually found in metamorphic rocks, such as those in the Harts Range in the Northern Territory. However, a more transparent, gemstone-quality ruby comes from a few areas in eastern Australia where it has been brought up from underlying metamorphic rocks by volcanic action.
Perfect climate conditions in Australia are responsible for these remarkable stones. Formation of opal goes back millions of years ago when Australia became new continent covered by a vast inland sea with a sedimentary basin.
Diamonds are the hardest stone, while talc is a very soft mineral. The scale by which the hardness of gemstone minerals are measured is the Mohs Scale of Hardness.
While Turquoise mineral deposits have been found in many Australian states, including New South Wales, Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia, these extremely limited occurrences do not produce high quantities or good qualities, with most specimens incapable of being ...