Aquamarine
The gemstone or birthstone for the month of March and is a beautiful shade of light blue to a darker blue or even blue-green that resembles the tropical waters of the Caribbean. The name itself, aquamarine is a Latin word that means seawater.
Aquamarine comes from the Beryl family, which is also where the precious Emerald was derived from. The stones are very different in appearance with the aquamarine having a clear transparency where the darker emerald shows up as hazy. Aquamarines get their color from the impurities of the iron found within the beryl stone, hence the wonderful spectrum of color intensities of the aquamarine.
A deep and saturated blue aquamarine is the most valuable of all the shades of aquamarines. The aquamarine is a hard gemstone and ranks as a 7.5 to 8 on the Moh’s Scale of Hardness.
The most valuable aquamarine gemstones are mined from the country of Brazil. Other countries that also mine aquamarines are Kenya, Nigeria, Madagascar, Zambia, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia and a few locations in the United States. The largest “chunk” of aquamarine was discovered in Germany in 1992 and weighed a total of 26 kg. It became known as the “Dom Pedro.” This “find” was cut by Bernd Munsteiner, who is a fine gemstone designer. Munsteiner holds the current record for cutting the largest aquamarine stone to date.
