Red beryl, formerly known as bixbite and marketed as red emerald or scarlet emerald, is an extremely rare variety of

beryl Beryl ( ) is a mineral composed of beryllium aluminium silicate with the chemical formula Be3Al2Si6O18. Well-known varieties of beryl include emerald and aquamarine. Naturally occurring, hexagonal crystals of beryl can be up to several ...

as well as one of the rarest minerals on Earth. The gem gets its red color from

manganese Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...

ions embedded inside of

beryllium Beryllium is a chemical element with the symbol Be and atomic number 4. It is a steel-gray, strong, lightweight and brittle alkaline earth metal. It is a divalent element that occurs naturally only in combination with other elements to form m ...

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...

cyclosilicate Silicate minerals are rock-forming minerals made up of silicate groups. They are the largest and most important class of minerals and make up approximately 90 percent of Earth's crust. In mineralogy, silica (silicon dioxide, ) is usually consid ...

crystals. The color of red beryl is stable up to . Red Beryl can come in various tints like strawberry, bright ruby, cherry, and orange. The largest crystals of red beryl are about wide and long. However, most crystals are under long. Recently, the red variety of Pezzottaite has been sold in markets as red beryl by some sellers.

Deposits and rarity of the mineral

Red beryl was discovered in 1904 by

Maynard Bixby Maynard Bixby (June 28, 1853 – February 18, 1935) was an American mineralogist and mineral collector. Early life Bixby was born in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania and graduated from Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania in 1876. He worked for a tim ...

in the Wah Wah mountains in

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

. In 1912 the gem was named bixbite by Alfred Eppler after Maynard Bixby. The old synonym "bixbite" is deprecated, since it can cause confusion with the mineral

bixbyite Bixbyite is a manganese iron oxide mineral with chemical formula: (Mn,Fe)2O3. The iron/manganese ratio is quite variable and many specimens have almost no iron. It is a metallic dark black with a Mohs hardness of 6.0 - 6.5. It is a somewhat rare ...

. The greatest concentration of gem-grade red beryl comes from the Ruby-Violet Claim in the Wah Wah Mountains of mid-western Utah, discovered in 1958 by Lamar Hodges, of

Fillmore, Utah Fillmore is a city and the county seat of Millard County, Utah, United States. The population was 2,435 at the 2010 United States Census. It is named for the thirteenth US President Millard Fillmore, who was in office when Millard County was cre ...

, while he was prospecting for

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

. Red beryl is very rare and has been reported only from a handful of locations: Wah Wah Mountains, Paramount Canyon, Round Mountain and

Juab County Juab County ( ) is a county in western Utah, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 10,246. Its county seat and largest city is Nephi. Juab County is part of the Provo–Orem, Utah Metropolitan Statistical ...

. This gem is also a thousand times more rare than gold. According to the

Utah Geological Survey The Utah Geological Survey is based in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It also has an office in Cedar City, Utah. It is a division of the

they estimated that one red beryl is found for every 150,000 diamonds. According to Gemmological Association of Great Britain a 2 carat red beryl has the same rarity as a 40 carat diamond. Red beryl is said to be roughly the same price or more valuable than emerald although it is a hundred times rarer than emerald. Its rarity has made it less popular but red beryl crystals that are over 1 carat can sell for US$ 20,000. In 2008, one carat can sell for US$5000 or more.

Characteristics

Red beryl rough crystals can be easily distinguished by hexagonal crystal systems. This gem has been known to be confused with pezzottaite, a caesium analog of beryl, that has been found in Madagascar and more recently Afghanistan; cut gems of the two varieties can be distinguished from their difference in

refractive index In optics, the refractive index (or refraction index) of an optical medium is a dimensionless number that gives the indication of the light bending ability of that medium. The refractive index determines how much the path of light is bent, or ...

. Like emerald and unlike most other varieties of beryl, red beryl is usually highly included. Red beryl has inclusions like feathers and fractures. Some mineral inclusions include

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical ...

feldspar Feldspars are a group of rock-forming aluminium tectosilicate minerals, also containing other cations such as sodium, calcium, potassium, or barium. The most common members of the feldspar group are the ''plagioclase'' (sodium-calcium) felds ...

, hematite, and

Formation

While gem beryls are ordinarily found in

pegmatites A pegmatite is an igneous rock showing a very coarse texture, with large interlocking crystals usually greater in size than and sometimes greater than . Most pegmatites are composed of quartz, feldspar, and mica, having a similar silicic co ...

and certain

metamorphic rock Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock ( protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, caus ...

, red beryl forms in topaz-bearing rhyolites. It is formed by crystallizing under low pressure and high temperature from a pneumatolytic phase along fractures or within near-surface miarolitic cavities of the rhyolite. Associated minerals include bixbyite,

orthoclase Orthoclase, or orthoclase feldspar ( endmember formula K Al Si3 O8), is an important tectosilicate mineral which forms igneous rock. The name is from the Ancient Greek for "straight fracture," because its two cleavage planes are at right angles ...

, topaz, spessartine, pseudobrookite and hematite. The dark red color is attributed to ions. Synthetic red beryl is also produced.

References

{{reflist Beryl group Hexagonal minerals