Emerald Sources: The Grass is Greener on the Other Side | GIA Knowledge Sessions Webinar Series

GIA Knowledge Sessions Webinar - recorded live on January 14, 2021.

Emerald has been coveted throughout human history. Only a handful of deposits were known during antiquity, but today, emeralds are mined all over the globe. Embark on a journey with Supervisor of Field Gemology Wim Vertriest as he explores the history and evolution of the world’s most important sources of emerald – from Cleopatra’s ancient Egyptian mines to the fabled mines in Colombia to more recent deposits in Ethiopia. This webinar will take you from the mountains of Afghanistan to the savannahs of Zambia, from the frozen Arctic to tropical jungles, detailing how and where people have found one of the most valuable treasures in the world.

Read more of Wim Vertriest's research:

[HappyKaci]

What a great video and fantastic information. Thank you so much ❤ GIA and all the researchers.

[GemologyforSchmucks]

Fantastic work again. Thank you for your excellent research and sharing these stories that many of us don't have access to. It's a pleasure to have such a sharp speaker as Wim to brighten up a topic that could be drier than dust from a less practiced or compelling speaker.

[hannamakela]

Fascinating! Thank you for the wonderful contextualization! My fascination with gemstones has more to do with the history and the geography of them than their aesthetic value (even though the c's are nice, of course;)).

[hanjijewelry]

Thank you so much for sharing the knowledge!

[vhg]

Another great video. Thank you for posting. On the question of emerald finding in Sri Lanka and why the lack of chromium host rocks would not support this, not all emeralds are colored by chromium. Vanadium is often the trace elements behind the green coloration of emeralds found outside of Colombia. This just my thought on the matter, but have heard that Sri Lanka is blessed with all types of gems with the exception of emeralds so what it's said in this webinar could be the reason.

[emanuellandeholm]

Love your geology videos! I knew about pegmatites (in felsic rocks) hosting a lot of gem minerals, but I had no idea about chromium and vanadium occurring only in mafic rock. You really need a felsic intrusion into basically basalt in order to make the cake. Fascinating!

[fiveb]

If I were in charge of doing the ordering of the workers gear at the Zambian The extraction teams gloves would definitely NOT be Emerald green.
None of the gear would be green period. Mostly everything would be day-glow red or chrome yellow.
This would be beneficial for their physical safety being in a construction zone with explosives and heavy equipment around, AND it would help the workers doing the sifting through the recently blasted material to more easily and quickly distinguish the gemstones from the surrounding host material.
The use of complementary colors to whichever gem is being sought (Emeralds in this case) helps the human eye to locate with greater accuracy that target gem material.
It's little adjustments like that which help increase overall gains in rough gem material, and decrease losses of life, time, money, AND rough gem material.
It's true.

[AKhanan]

very informative video. sir i m from swat. and i m also gemologist and working on Emeralds business

[charlessavoie]

I thought peridot from St. John's island was the only green stone from Egypt. Tsavorite has emerged as a substitute/competitor to emerald. Its maximum sizes are less than emeralds.

[al-irfangemstones]

kindly dubbed it in urdu،
or organise a webinar in urdu,
or write subtitle in urdu
plz

[geoffgeoff]

I quite like the format. Some presenters are so vain, they think their face is more important to show than the info they are presenting.

[amoromar]

to this day no Afghan government and no Afghan nation have accepted Swat valley as part of Pakistan, the legitimacy of the so- called Durand Line dividing Afghanistan and India in 1893, please GIA be care about history of Afghanistan which has more than 5000 years history.