Garnet

History
Garnet has been popular ever since ancient Egyptian times, when the deep red stones were used with peridot, topaz, lapis lazuli and other stones. Legend states that Noah used a garnet as a bow light on the ark during the flood.

Features
Garnets come in a variety of colors ranging from yellows and reds to greens. Garnet crystals are usually twelve sided, and the crystals can be included or transparent. Some garnets can have fine silk inclusions which can produce star stones. Being just slightly harder than quartz and having good toughness, garnets are durable stones for jewellery.

Treatments
Currently there are no treatments for garnets. They have not been successfully created in a laboratory, but some synthetic stones may be used to imitate garnets, especially the rare green tsavorite garnet, which rarely occurs larger than one carat in crystal form.

Principal Deposits
Garnets can be found in Czechoslovakia, South Africa, the US, Russia, Mongolia, Australia, Myanmar, Argentina and Brazil.

Rarity
Red garnets are the most abundant of the garnet group, followed by reddish orange and yellow garnets. Green garnets are quite rare, with two major types: demantoid garnet from Russia, and tsavorite garnet, which is seldom over one carat in size.