Characteristics of Beryl:

Chemical Name: Beryllium aluminum silicate

Formula: Be₃Al₂Si₆O₁₈

Colors: Colorless, red, blue, green, yellow

Structure: Hexagonal

Hardness: 7.5-8

Specific Gravity: 2.6-2.8

Refractive Index: 1.57-1.60

Lustre: Vitreous

Streak: White

Locations: Colombia, USA, Brazil, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Austria, South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique, Madagascar, Russia

What is Beryl? 

Beryl provides some of nature’s most beautiful gemstones. Although it is colorless in its pure form, it is perhaps best known for tis colored varieties, which include aquamarine and emerald – indeed, its name comes from the Greek beryllos, meaning “green stone”. The colorless form of Beryl is known as goshenite, and its clarity is such that it was used to make lenses for some of the earliest eyeglasses during the Middle Ages.

The colors of Beryl

 Where colors do occur in Beryl, they are caused by minute chemical impurities, and this is sometimes reflected in the varieties’ names. The green color of emerald, for example, is caused by traces of chromium. Morganite is colored pink, rose lilac, peach, orange, or pinkish yellow by the presence of manganese, and its crystal sometimes show color banding, with a sequence from blue near the base to nearly colorless in the center, to peach or pink at the tip. It is almost always faceted, and stones with a yellow or orange tinge are sometimes heat-treated to emphasize their pink tones. Manganese is also the coloring agent in the rare red Beryl, sometimes called red emerald or scarlet emerald. The colors in blue and green aquamarine, and yellow to golden heliodor, result from traces of iron. Much greenish-blue aquamarine is heated to produce an intense blue color hat has become popular in modern jewelry.