Sapphire

picture info	Sapphire Sapphire is a precious gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, consisting of aluminium oxide () with trace amounts of elements such as iron, titanium, chromium, vanadium, or magnesium. The name sapphire is derived via the Latin "sapphirus" from the Greek "sappheiros", which referred to lapis lazuli. It is typically blue, but natural "fancy" sapphires also occur in yellow, purple, orange, and green colors; "parti sapphires" show two or more colors. Red corundum stones also occur, but are called rubies rather than sapphires. Pink-colored corundum may be classified either as ruby or sapphire depending on locale. Commonly, natural sapphires are cut and polished into gemstones and worn in jewelry. They also may be created synthetically in laboratories for industrial or decorative purposes in large crystal boules. Because of the remarkable hardness of sapphires 9 on the Mohs scale (the third hardest mineral, after diamond at 10 and moissanite at 9.5) sapphires are also used i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu]
picture info	Oxide Mineral The oxide mineral class includes those minerals in which the oxide anion (O2−) is bonded to one or more metal alloys. The hydroxide-bearing minerals are typically included in the oxide class. The minerals with complex anion groups such as the silicates, sulfates, carbonates and phosphates are classed separately. Simple oxides: XO Periclase group Periclase Manganosite Zincite group Zincite * Bromellite *Tenorite Litharge Cuprite Ice * Hematite group Corundum Hematite Ilmenite Rutile group Rutile Pyrolusite Cassiterite Baddeleyite Uraninite Thorianite Spinel group Spinel Gahnite Magnetite Franklinite Chromite Chrysoberyl Columbite Hydroxide subgroup: Brucite Manganite Romanèchite Goethite group: *Diaspore Goethite Nickel–Strunz Classification -04- Oxides IMA-CNMNC proposes a new hierarchical scheme (Mills et al., 2009). This list uses it to modify ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR:* [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu]
picture info	Iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in front of oxygen (32.1% and 30.1%, respectively), forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust. In its metallic state, iron is rare in the Earth's crust, limited mainly to deposition by meteorites. Iron ores, by contrast, are among the most abundant in the Earth's crust, although extracting usable metal from them requires kilns or furnaces capable of reaching or higher, about higher than that required to smelt copper. Humans started to master that process in Eurasia during the 2nd millennium BCE and the use of iron tools and weapons began to displace copper alloys, in some regions, only around 1200 BCE. That event is considered the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu]