Figuring out how each new gem garnet fits into the six main mineral species is a challenge for gemologists.

There are more than twenty garnet categories, called species, but only five are commercially important as gems. Those five are pyrope, almandine (also called almandite), spessartine, grossular (grossularite), and andradite.

Discover the meaning and history of garnet, the January birthstone, and where it can be found.

To appreciate the rainbow of garnets available, you have to see them. Find a retailer who can show you tsavorite, rhodolite, and one of the orange garnets. You’ll be surprised at how beautiful fine garnet can be.

These gemstones come in almost every color. Red is the most common garnet color, and is found in metamorphic rocks around the world. Other colors like green, orange, and purple-red are less common and more valuable.

2014年1月3日 · GIA’s Garnet Buying Guide offers key pointers on what quality factors to look for, and helps you differentiate between some of the garnet varieties, for example two of the green garnets: tsavorite and demantoid.

Garnet, January’s birthstone, is one of the most diverse gemstones, as it comes in an extraordinary range of colors. The garnet birthstone is mined around the world and symbolizes happiness, wealth, and health.

garnets: any deep, pure red garnet is usually re- garded as pyrope, any violetish-red garnet has been automatically assumed to be rhodolite, and so on. Such assumptions are not necessarily valid. What is a pyrope, an almandine, a rhodolite? What criteria enable us to delimit the ranges of their properties? How well do the commonly employed

Depending on type, garnet hardness ranges from 6.5 to 7.5 on the Mohs scale. For example, almandine, pyrope, spessartine, and tsavorite are on the harder side while demantoid is a bit softer. Garnets have fair to good toughness, making them durable enough for all jewelry styles as long as they are treated with the proper care.

Garnet. Garnets are a set of closely related minerals forming a group, with gemstones in almost every color.