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Plain, natural sapphires are already popular gemstones. Meanwhile, the prefix “Star” comes from its brilliant star design after it is enhanced.
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Others believe that the name was derived from its connection with the blue planet of Saturn. The name sapphire comes from the French “saphir”, Latin “sapphirus” or the Greek “sappheiros”, all of which means “blue stone”. In particular, Sri Lanka is the biggest producer of sapphires in the globe, mining at least 100 carats of the lighter blue shades of sapphires that are transformed into valuable star sapphires. The commercial mining locations for sapphires include: Such hardness is second only to diamond and means that it has excellent toughness without any cleavage that makes it prone to breaking when hit. In the Mohs hardness scale, the sapphire crystals are rated 9. With the exception of Ruby, which is the red conundrum, all other colors of Corundum are called Sapphires. The extra mineral compounds forming with the aluminum oxide are responsible for its color variation. Sapphire, however, forms a diversity of colors. This stone can be transparent or opaque with its true color being the color blue. Also, it can occur as granular or massive habits. Sapphires are a variety of Corundum which are aluminum oxide minerals, forming in bipyramidal, rhombohedral, and tabular crystal structures.
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