Hailing from San Diego County, CA, and standing 11 inches tall is “The Steamboat” tourmaline — a truly amazing example of October's birthstone. The specimen’s two parallel crystals — which resemble steamboat stacks — display a range of vibrant colors that start at vivid reddish-pink at the bottom and transition to a bright bluish-green at […]
Monica Puig, the 2016 Olympic gold medalist in women's tennis, has a lot to smile about despite having to bow out of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics due to multiple surgeries. The Puerto Rican athlete announced with a series of Instagram photos that she got engaged over the weekend to fellow athlete Nathan Rakitt. The jagged […]
Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you fun songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the lyrics or title. Today former Nickelodeon star Victoria Justice expresses female empowerment in her 2013 debut single, “Gold.” In the song, a girl is trying to tell a long-time buddy that she’d like to be more than […]
Are diamond riches hiding in the seabed just off Greenland's southwest coast? Mining giant De Beers wants to know. Multiple news agencies have confirmed that De Beers commissioned a survey to measure the viability of off-shore diamond mining near the town of Maniitsoq. De Beers would capture those diamonds using the same ship-based processing technology […]
A novice treasure hunter using his metal detector for the first time recently stumbled upon one of the largest, richest and most beautiful hoards of gold artifacts in Danish history. Ole Ginnerup Schytz was looking for a place to try out his new metal detector, so he asked an old classmate if he could explore […]
A gift from engineer and philanthropist John A. Roebling II to the Smithsonian in 1926, this 2,585-carat opal specimen is an extraordinary example of October's official birthstone. More than 95% of the world’s gem-quality opals originate in Australia and the finest black opals are commonly sourced at Lightning Ridge — an Aussie mining area that […]
It took retiree Noreen Wredberg less than one hour to score the largest diamond of the year at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. The Granite Bay, CA, native spotted the 4.38-carat yellow diamond sitting on top of the ground in a plowed field that is actually the eroded surface of an extinct, diamond-bearing […]
Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you awesome songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today we feature Eddy Grant’s 1984 hit, “Romancing the Stone,” which he wrote as the title song of what would become the international blockbuster movie starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and a giant-sized emerald […]
With a revolution raging in France in March 1791, Queen Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI prepared for their escape. The queen spent an evening carefully wrapping her most precious jewels in cotton and then packed them neatly into a wooden chest. The diamond, ruby and pearl treasures were secretly shipped to Vienna in the […]
Hot on the heels of her bronze medal performance at Tokyo's Paralympic Games, swimmer Sophia Herzog turned to Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to announce her engagement to Para-cyclist boyfriend Nick Gibb. The 24-year-old athlete posted two photos that prominently displayed her engagement ring, which features a round, brilliant-cut diamond set with four prongs upon a […]