Education
The legacy of Australian Sapphires
Quick Facts about the Australian Sapphire
What makes Australian Sapphires special?
On the Eastern side of the Australian continent there are Tertiary volcanic deposits, ranging in age from less than 1 million to 40 or more million years old.
Gem quality sapphire is often found in the vicinity of these volcanic deposits however only in a few places has they been found to be available in quantities sufficient to allow large scale commercial mining.
Two locations are especially significant:
NSW: New England district of Northern NSW around the townships of Inverell and Glenn Innes.
QLD: The Anakie Gemfields around the villages of Sapphire and Rubyvale to the west of Emerald.
The Beauty of Colour Banding (Zoning) in Australian Sapphires
A very important feature displayed by many Australian sapphires is well developed colour banding. Often a sapphire will be coloured by bands of blue and yellow, blue and green or green and yellow. Distinct, well separated colour bands may allow the stone to be cut as a distinctive bi-colour stone.
Sapphires with a distinct separation of colour produce the highly sought after Parti Sapphire. Other colours like Teal are a more intimate admixture of green and blue.
Due to the numerous combinations of colours resulting from a trigonal crystalline structure, Australian sapphires are one of the most interesting gemstones available.
The main colours of Australian Sapphire
The Australian Parti Sapphire
These stunning sapphires come in variations of Blue, Green and Straw (Yellow). The majority of Parti Sapphires will exhibit a distinct bi-partisan between two of the aforementioned colours. The rarest Parti sapphires exhibit all three. Due to this unique colour partisan, no two Australian Parti Sapphires are the same. Australia produces the majority of Parti Sapphires globally, and as the precious gemstone gains popularity, so does its value.
The Australian Teal Sapphire
The Teal sapphire has gained renown due to its interesting colour mixtures. An imperfect combination of Blue and Green, each teal sapphire flashes noticeable pockets of colour in different forms of lighting. Australia produces the majority of the world's teal sapphires, and are the ones setting the trend for their exceptional beauty and unique colour.
