The Rarity
Only through a miracle of nature do emeralds exist at all. Emerald is a member of the beryl family of gemstones which also includes; aquamarine (light blue), goshenite (colorless beryl), golden beryl (lemon-yellow to golden-yellow), morganite (pink), bixbite (red) and heliodor (light yellow-green). The basic composition of beryl is aluminum beryllium silicate (Al2Be3Si6O18).
The green color of emeralds is derived from minute traces of chromium and vanadium. Normally, beryl, chromium and vanadium don't occur together in nature. But 65 million years ago, sedimentary and igneous rock in the earth's crust crushed down on the rock deep below the surface in certain areas of the globe, such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, parts of Africa, Russia, and Colombia. Rising magma and metamorphism generated incredible heat and pressure, melting beryl, chromium and vanadium together into emerald crystals, to be found and prized by man millions of years later.
