Green Sapphire Gemstones

Green Sapphire Gemstones

Sapphire, a variety of the mineral corundum, is usually considered to be blue, but in fact it occurs in a wide range of colors except for red. That's because the gem industry uses the name ruby for red corundum, in recognition of the special value we attach to the hardest of all red gemstones.

Blue is such an important color that the term sapphire in the gem trade always refers to blue corundum. Other colors of sapphire are called "fancy", and the colors include pink, yellow, orange, green, violet and white. The wide range of colors in corundum is caused by different impurities such as chromium, titanium and iron.

Among the fancy sapphires, yellow has been especially valued, in large part because of its place as one of the nine planetary gems in the Vedic astrological tradition. Pink is one of the rarest of the fancy colors, and can usually be found only in small sizes.

Green sapphire was once thought of as one of the less desirable colors, but is now increasingly popular, though no one is quite sure why. Perhaps it is because green has always been an important gemstone color (think emerald, tourmaline and tsavorite garnet) and this color of sapphire is fairly rare.

Green sapphire can occur in colors ranging from a light mint to a dark forest green. The finest stones are thought to come from Sri Lanka, but they are quite rare. Most of the green corundum you will see in the market are from Thailand or Australia. These tend to a darker green and are often blue-green or yellow-green. You may also find specimens found from Burma and Madagascar.

Green Sapphire Gemstones
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Green Sapphire Gemstones