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This article and its illustrations are made to show you the shape of crystal in nature. It’s a subject I found exciting. I love to see pictures and drawings of crystals. This type of perfect representation is not what we are looking for as cutters. Those perfectly behaving crystals are for collectors because they demonstrate their shape by the book. Cutters are looking for amazing color and for as few as possible or no inclusions, and if possible, for shape that can be cut without losing too much weight. In this post, I will go over 5 varieties of gems. If you like it, I can do another post in the future with more gemstones varieties.

 

Aquamarine

 

Aquamarine is part of the beryl family along with the emerald. In this drawing, you can see the hexagonal column shape of the aqua with a flat top called a pinacoid. Another type of termination the aqua exhibits is pyramid-like faces, called prisms. It’s quite rare to see the termination of the crystal because they break, which is why this would be a collector sample. This drawing also shows inclusions in the crystal.

 

Diamond

Diamonds are usually in an octahedron shape, like bipyramids, often rounded. Sometimes the octahedron breaks and a triangle appears, which is called a macle. In the drawing, you can see little trigons, which are the triangle relief that appear on the diamond skin. This is typical of diamonds.

Garnet

A garnet might exhibit many interesting shapes around the cubic system. On my drawings, there are only cubes attached to each other, which are called penetration twins. Garnet crystals can have 12, 24 or more sides.

 

 

Sapphire

 

On this image, the sapphire shows a hexagonal bipyramid. I have always thought a sapphire exhibiting this crystal shape is super elegant and sophisticated. Not all sapphires are this perfect, but they are always hexagonal prisms.

 

 

Tourmaline

 

This is one of my favorite gems due to the amazing array of color and the price. Tourmaline usually occurs in prismatic and columnar crystals, often triangular. The cross-section is often a rounded triangle, usually with striated faces. The top of the crystal can be flat or prismatic. In my drawing, the prism is hexagonal.