Gem Profile: Tsavorite and Green Garnets

by Layna Palmer, Wire-Sculpture.com

Tsavorite and Green Garnets

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To continue our discussion on Garnet this week, we’ll take a look at the green garnets. Editor’s note: while green garnets are beautiful, they are extremely hard to come by… so we are pleased to feature even more red garnet wire jewelry made by talented readers like you in this Garnet article!

Green is a color for a Garnet? Well, yes it is! Uvarovite, Grossularite, and Andradite garnets range in color from a light yellow-green to an intense green – nearly the same color as the finest Emerald.

Tsavorite

Tsavorite is a deep green stone discovered in 1967 by Campbell R. Bridges, a British Geologist. He was camping in the mountains in northeastern Tanzania when he came across some curious nodules of rock. After breaking them open, he discovered beautiful green crystals he later found to be of the grossular group, though these were too small to facet. (See a picture of Tsavorite here.)

Bridges then continued to search for a viable gem-quality source of the stone in Kenya where he not only lived in a tree hut to protect himself from animals, but was successful in finding larger stones that could be faceted. (so Mom, the next time your boy builds a fort from your couch cushions, remember Campbell Bridges and tsavorite!) Since the stones were first found in Tanzania near the Tsavo preserve, Tiffany and Co president Henry Platt named the stones Tsavorite. So far the stone has only been found in Madagascar and Kenya. Tsavorite has a refractive index of 1.74 giving the stone fire that is said to be seen even while hidden by cloth. It is also rare to find the Tsavorite in larger than 2 – 3 carats with most of the stones being less than 1carat, though in rare instances larger carat stones have been found like the 325 carat beauty found in 2006.

Demantoid Garnets

Another type of green garnet is the Demantoid Garnet, my personal favorite. Demantoid doesn’t refer to a condition, but rather it means it’s an andradite garnet that ranges in color from yellow green to deep emerald green. It has amazing luminosity with a 0.057 dispersion and 1.80-1.89 refractive index making the “fire” of the Demantoid greater than that of a diamond.

Demantoid garnet, also called “Ural Pearls,” were discovered in the Ural Mountains of Russia in 1868 and soon graced workshops in St. Petersburg – most notably, that of Carl Faberge. Faberge, who created the famous Faberge eggs, loved the demantoid for its brilliance. Only occasionally seen on the market after World War I, the demantoid made a rather dramatic return in the 1996 when more of the material was found in the Spitzkoppe range of Namibia.

A Namibian goatherd was just wandering around, minding his own business, when he stubbed his toe on the gem. (I don’t know about the toe part, but he did find the stones in the dirt and thought they should be looked at by the village elders…what a great story!)

So what differentiates the Demantoids found in Russia versus the ones in Namibia? Well, they are equal in brilliance, color and fire, but differ in one minor detail: the horsetail inclusions.

Generally when we think of inclusions in gemstones, the fewer there are, the greater the value of the gem. This does not hold true for the humble Demantoid. The inclusions are called “horsetail” because they’re golden brown threads usually seen radiating from the center of the stone, looking like the hair on the tail of a horse. The horsetail inclusions are chrysotile, a form of asbestos. Because these inclusions are only found in the demantoid garnets of the Ural Mountains, these stones are rare and thus priced higher than the equally beautiful yet inclusion-free ones from Namibia.

Uvarovite

Last but not least is Uvarovite, one of the rarest of garnet, was discovered by Germain Henri Hess in 1832 and named for Count Sergei Semenovitch Uvarov. The small crystals form a druze in the marble and schist deposits in the Ural Mountains and the Outokumpu range in Finland and has also been found in Quebec, Canada, Norway, and South Africa. The bright green of uvarovite is due to the chromium content within the garnet structure. Uvarovite is the only garnet that has a consistency to its green color!

Green Garnet Metaphysical Properties

Tsavorite is said to bring strength during difficult or new phases of life. It is a stone of wealth and positive feeling helping the wearer in financial, creative, and physical health.

Demantoids are said to reduce loneliness, increase love and help remove emotional obstacles. They help promote growth in relationships and decrease the feelings of emotional inequality. Green Andradite is the color of the earth giving the wearer a sense of awakening, helping one to persevere and is an excellent talisman of power.

Uvarovite is a calming stone that is said to strengthen the heart and other organs as well as bringing a sense of self-worth, especially to heal negative emotions caused by a feeling of scarcity.

For next week’s gem profile, have you ever wire wrapped Variscite? Send us a picture of your Variscite jewelry at tips@wire-sculpture.com and it could be featured!

Resources & Recommended Reading

• Green Crystals Meanings – Crystal Vaults
• Garnet on Minerals.net
• Garnet on Wikipedia
• Tsavorite on Wikipedia
• Uvarovite on Wikipedia
• Demantoid on Wikipedia
• International Colored Gemstone Association – Demantoid Garnet
• International Colored Gemstone Association – Tsavorite Garnet

Gem Profile by Layna Palmer

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