The Guide To 6 Main Emerald Types & How To Identify Them

The green king of the gem world, the emerald has captivated human attention with its nearly impossible saturation and rarity. However, not all emeralds are made equal. While found in many places on Earth, mining locations are most significant when they consistently produce gem-quality emeralds. The main commercial sources of emeralds are Colombia, Brazil, and Zambia. There are other countries that have abundant deposits of these stones, including Russia, Australia, and Pakistan. However, in this guide we will introduce the differences between the most highly valued emeralds in the world — coming from just a handful of mines — and how lab grown emeralds compare.

Emeralds are a variety of minerals called beryls. Beryls come in seven varieties (in other words, colourations) aside from emerald, and there are even green beryls that are considered not verdant enough to be labelled as emeralds.

There are two ways emeralds form, both involving four elements: oxygen, silicon, beryllium, and aluminium. The coveted gemstones can form from leftover elements when magma cools, or in hot, mineral-rich fluids heated by magma. The source of the characteristic green colour of emeralds is trace amounts of chromium or vanadium. These elements are few and far between, making emeralds even rarer than diamonds.

Sometimes called panna stones in Sanskrit, emeralds are Type 3 gems, meaning they usually grow with a high number of inclusions. (Type 1 gems grow with few to no eye-visible inclusions.) This affects their hardness, making panna quite brittle. However, emeralds are unique in that they’re valued mainly according to their colour “almost to the exclusion of clarity, brilliance, or other characteristics,” in the words of the GIA.

First, when talking about types of emerald stone, the three components used to differentiate and price emeralds are:

• Hue: Shade of green, which ranges from bluish green to yellowish green;
• Saturation: Intensity of the hue;
• Tone: Relative lightness or darkness.

In general, Brazilian emeralds are yellowish green. They are known to show a less deep green than their Colombian counterparts, but are renowned for their clarity. This characteristic is emphasised by the lighter tone of Brazilian emeralds, which allows more light into the precious stone.

Emeralds mined from Zambia in Southern Africa have extremely distinct appearances. The second-largest producer of emeralds in the world, Zambia supplies bluish green emeralds which appear cooler and darker in tone than Colombian and Brazilian ones. Zambian emeralds tend to contain certain inclusions, such as flakes of minerals that got trapped inside the gem during the formation process. However, these are desired nonetheless by shoppers seeking the unique ‘moody’ look of Zambian emeralds.

Colombian emeralds currently hold the crown as the most sought-after emeralds in the trade. This is primarily because they have a warm emerald hue which just seems to speak to more consumers’ desires, right in the middle between bluish and yellowish green. Emeralds sourced from Colombia also typically have fewer fractions and inclusions. The rarest emeralds in the world, with that distinct glowing green and high clarity, come from Colombia.

As an interesting note, the famous ‘emerald cut’ used to create depth and visual drama in gemstones originated in the 1500s in Colombia’s Muzo mine, arising as a way to prevent chipping when cutting them.

Cat’s eye emeralds convey a very special feature, which is a glowing line throughout the stone that comes from aligned inclusions. This optical effect is called ‘chatoyancy’. It isn’t confined to one part of the world, having been discovered in deposits throughout the globe, but emeralds with this characteristic are a rare occurrence.

Trapiche emeralds are the rarest emerald variety of all. Found in just a few Colombian mines, they are emeralds with impurities of shale that radiate out from the core of the gemstone. Curiously, there are consistently six of these dark rays observed in trapiche emeralds. Gemologists and geologists haven’t yet agreed on how these stones form. The name of this lesser-known emerald type comes from the name of a Spanish sugar mill, due to the patterns’ resemblance.

Created emeralds are grown in laboratories using equipment that perfectly imitates the natural formation process. The only differences are that lab grown emeralds:

• Take significantly less time to form (months compared to hundreds of thousands of years);
• Require fewer resources to extract (e.g. water, treatment chemicals, and mining workers);
• And contain fewer impurities than mined ones due to the highly controlled environment and lack of random factors like surrounding minerals.

Otherwise, lab gemstones like our signature BIRON® emerald are optically and chemically identical to natural emeralds. Comparable to the most coveted emeralds in the market, our eco-friendly emerald is formulated to be equivalent in hue, saturation, and purity as Colombian emerald. Yet, because created gemstones aren’t limited in supply like natural gemstones, they are priced much friendlier.

Prices vary according to suppliers’ discretion and the quality of the gem itself. In general, mined emeralds cost approximately $50,000USD to $100,000USD per carat, while lab-created emeralds cost around $300USD and up per carat, making them a much more accessible choice for sustainable-minded jewellery shoppers.

Inter-Pacific is your expert in created gemstones. We provide multicoloured stones, ranging from lab emeralds and rubies to diamonds and opals. Contact us for a free consultation to learn about how we can provide or source ethically created cut gems and rough stones for your sustainable jewellery business. Get high-quality gems at a fraction of the cost of mined gems, under a transparent pricing structure.