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Moissanite
Moissanite
is said to be a rival to all other gemstone because of its brilliance,
hardness, weight and scratch resistance. It possesses all the romance
and passion of rubies, sapphires and emeralds. It is only found in
meteorites and in a very limited areas beneath the earth's surface.
Moissanite was discovered by a French chemist and Nobel Prize winner,
Dr. Ferdinand Henri Moissan. He found it at Diablo Canyon, also known
as Meteor Crater, in Arizona (USA). The synthetic moissanite is known
as silicon carbide because of its chemistry and the trade name,
carborundum.
Natural moissanite is the rarest and it is limited to the iron-nickel
meteorites. Few other are from ultra-mafic igneous occurances.
Moissanite is also grown in laboratories and is used as a diamond
simulant, apart from gemstone. Unlike other diamond, it is thermally
conductive and this property is used as the test for the authenticity
of real diamonds. Other things which differentiate Moissanite with
diamond are that it is hexagonal and doubly refractive. It is also
less dense and rarely has the clarity of color. A pale shades of green
is always there.
The specific gravity of moissante stone is from 3.1 to 3.2 and
hardness 9.25 on Mohs scale.
 
|
Name |
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|
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| Moissanite* |
9.5 |
3.20 |
e |
- |
f |
Yes |
i |
j |
k |
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