New research on Musakashi emeralds published

SSEF researchers have published their recent research on Musakashi emeralds in the latest edition of the Journal of Gemmology.

Abstract:

Emeralds from the Musakashi area of Zambia entered the gem trade in early 2002 in
rather small quantities. Faceted stones are mostly available in smaller sizes (1–5 ct) but occasionally
reach up to 20 ct or more. They can be of very fine gem quality and exhibit similarities to Colombian
emeralds, not only in appearance, but also in their gemmological properties, inclusion features and
chemical properties. Seventy-eight Musakashi emeralds were characterised gemmologically and
chemically for this report. They can be distinguished from Colombian emeralds (as well as other
similar emeralds from Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley) based on certain diagnostic internal features
(e.g. ‘sawtooth’-outlined multiphase fluid inclusions) and their chemical composition (e.g. plotting
Fe vs V/Cr, and cluster visualisation using a t-SNE machine-learning algorithm). Separating them
from the classic schist-hosted emeralds of the Kafubu area in Zambia is straightforward based
on differences in their gemmological properties, inclusions, UV-Vis-NIR and Raman spectra, and
chemical composition.