Chrome Diopside

Item Description

Unquestionably, the finest chromium-bearing Diopside gems in the world come from Russia, specifically the Inagli Quarry in the southern Sakha Republic. These gems are not only intensely colored, but often produced very good sized faceted stones with superb clarity. This stone is a fantastic, very good sized, intense green color, VVS clarity "Brilliant Oval" cut gemstone of Chrome Diopside. It's important to keep in mind that Chrome Diopside is a very rare gem, especially considering that the only good rough comes from one place in the world (which has a shortened mining season due to the tremendous amount of annual snowfall). A large percentage of the stones on the market are less than 1 carat, so a stone of this size is a big deal. It is very very difficult to find this material in clean stones and inclusions are accepted by most collectors and dealers, and this gem only has very slight inclusions. A great example of this hard to find gem, especially from the standpoint of size. An abstract from Russian Geology and Geophysics states that this locality "has a concentric zonal structure cut by numerous radial-circular vein bodies of pegmatites and pure anchimonomineral rocks (Cr-diopsidites), in places, of jewelry quality."