An emerald is normally what colour?

Emerald, grass-green variety of beryl that is highly valued as a gemstone. The name comes indirectly from the Greek smaragdos, a name that seems to have been given to a number of stones having little in common except a green colour.

The ancients appear to have obtained emeralds from Upper Egypt, where it is said to have been worked as early as 2000 BC. Greek miners were working the mines in the time of Alexander the Great, and later the mines yielded their gems to Cleopatra. Remains of extensive workings were discovered about 1817; “Cleopatra’s Mines” are situated in Jabal Sukayt and Jabal Zabārah near the Red Sea coast, east of Aswān.

During the Spanish conquest of South America, vast quantities of emeralds were taken from several rich deposits in Colombia. The only South American emeralds now known occur near Bogotá, Colom.

About 1830 emeralds were discovered in the Urals. They have been worked on the River Takovaya, northeast of Sverdlovsk, where they occur in mica or chlorite schist.

The physical properties of emerald are essentially the same as those of beryl. Its refractive and dispersive powers are not high, so that cut stones display little brilliancy or fire. The magnificent colour that gives extraordinary value to this gem is probably due to small amounts of chromium. The stone loses colour when strongly heated.