Have you got the minerals my Son? Well 'ave ya?

My Precious....Red Beryl (Red Emeralds or Bixbite)

Officially known as Red Beryls although they are sold by the sexier and easier to sell name of Red Emeralds. Which goes to show why the original name of Bixbite stood no chance. It is one of the rarest of precious Gemstones both in numbers and locations, with Red Beryl being the rarest of the Precious Beryls.

They are part of the precious Beryl group that are not emeralds. Red Emeralds are brittle and should not be exposed to stress (physical kind not emotional) but are resistant to normal chemicals.

It was named Bixbite after its discoverer Maynard Bixby who found it in 1904 in the Thomas Range located in Juab County, Utah. Red Beryl is very rare and found, at the moment, in only 2 areas of the world. It was discovered in Utah in the Thomas Range, Juab County and also found in the Wah Wah Mountains, in the nice Beaver County. The other location is New Mexico in the Black Range (Mimbres Mountains), New Mexico - Round Mountain and Paramount Canyon.

Ruby Violet Mine - The Red Eye Shift

There is only one mine working gem quality Red Emeralds and that is located at The Ruby Violet Mine, Wah Wah Mountains, Utah. Red Beryls of gem quality are found in Rhyolite.

It is a surface mining operation. They blast a promising area and send in one person with an excavator and one observer. As soon as someone sees a red crystal, someone goes and gets it with a hammer and chisel and pulls the rock away. Surface Mining - preciousgemstones.com

Formed deep underground but found on the ground?

Why are Gemstones found on the surface or just below, why do they have inclusions and why are certain types found in cavities and can be covered in a black coating?

Most Gemstones are said to be formed deep underground as its the only normal place where the correct conditions can be found - pressure and heat. Most Gemstones are found on or very near the surface. A lot of Gemstones including Amber are formed around an inclusion. If the inclusion was not there would the Gemstone not be formed?

A number of gemstone species are actually fragile, with stress, chemicals or heat fracturing, destroying or reducing the colour of them. If something is formed through intense forces why are they not very good when faced with the same forces? Red Emeralds ,although brittle, will not lose their colour when subjected to heat or light. Gemstones are found all over the world but some areas do not have them. The same type of Gemstone can be found in different locations but in a pysically different setting. For such a unique set of processes needed to form precious stones it is amazing how often these set of formation conditions are found.

The Rarest of all beryl gemstones, Red Beryl was formed from a unique geological setting. While gem beryls are ordinarily found in pegmatites and certain metamorphic rocks, beryl from the Ruby Violet Mine, the only known location of gem-quality red beryl, is found in rhyolite. Rhyolite is a light-coloured, fine-grained igneous rock created from solidified magma or ash flows. The presence of beryl in rhyolite and its extreme rarity suggests the Ruby Violet Mine is a unique occurrence in nature. Unique Red Beryl in Rhyolite - redemerald.com

The creation of Gemstones is an interpretation, no one has seen Gemstones being created in nature. Any process that can give the same conditions may be able to to form them. That is part of the design and reasoning behind synthetic Gemstones. If you could sujbect the host rock to intense forces (energy) of pressure and heat you may be able to create Gemstones. A Plasma Discharge Event could provide enough energy and through a Z-pinch create the pressure needed. Electricity is used to power Aluminium Smelting Plants, perhaps the largest users of Electricity in the world.

Why do so many Precious Stones have inclusions? It may act like a resistor and concentrate the power in that area.

The (Red Beryl) crystals occur primarily as elongated hexagonal crystals that are up to 15 mm in length, and the largest crystal discovered to date is 14 mm wide and 34 mm long. Red beryl is generally found along large, near-vertical, northwest-trending fractures and clay-filled seams within the rhyolite member of the Blawn Formation. The rhyolite erupted approximately 18 to 20 million years ago from volcanic vents in the area. Utah Geological Survey - Survey Notes - September 2002 (pdf)

In Starvation Canyon, the red beryl occurs in an evolved rhyolite...Beryl formed in a small area in the medial part of the flow and is associated with clay-lined fractures and vapor phase minerals, including bixbyite, pseudobrookite, Mn-hematite, and topaz.....The presence of hematite, bixbyite, pseudobrookite and Fe3+-rich beryl, as well as a very low magnetic susceptibility (less than 0.1 SI units) suggest the mineralized zone was highly oxidized. The mineral assemblage, including abundant clay, is convincing evidence of surface water interaction during the crystallization of the beryl. The Geological Society of America - Utah: Contrasts and comparisons with other Red Beryl occurrences

Rhyolite is a high-silica lava that is chemically the same as granite but is extrusive rather than plutonic. Rhyolite - about.com (Geology)

Red Beryl is thought to have formed along fractures, in cavities or within the host rhyolite from a high-temperature gas or vapor phase released during the latter stages of cooling and crystallization of the rhyolite magma. Rhyolites ordinarily lack gem minerals and beryls of any sort is extremely uncommon, therefore the presence of Red Beryl suggests some unusual conditions for gemstone formation. Red Beryl formation - galleries.com

This compound had larger entropy change with small magnetic field than that without Dy, though the absolute entropy change at low temperatures with large applied field was smaller due to the ground state doublet of Dy. Magnetic entropy change of a rare earth garnet - sciencedirect.com

Book Review Gemstones: Symbols of Beauty and Power (Rocks, Minerals and Gemstones). You can purchase this book at Amazon.co.uk or at Amazon.com