GIA field gemologists recently completed their one-hundredth expedition, adding to the Institute’s unrivaled store of independently verified gemological information from colored stone mining locales around the world.
During this expedition to Kenya and Tanzania, the GIA team collected large parcels of tsavorite, spinel and sapphire rough, verifying and recording the precise origin of each sample. The more than 15 kilograms of gem rough included more than 10,000 carats of individual sapphires from Garba Tula in Kenya.
‘Our extensive field gemology program is the foundation of our colored stone research and identification and country-of-origin services,’ said Tom Moses, GIA chief laboratory and research officer. “With over 29,000 verified samples (some comprising of several hundred individual stones) – more than one million carats – from 20 countries, we have the most complete and detailed database of the chemical, geological and gemological properties of colored stones from mining locations around the world.’
During the expedition, the GIA team went deep underground with tsavorite and tanzanite miners to document how these popular gemstones are mined. The team studied the challenges of balancing artisanal mining, environmental conservation and developing mining operations more efficiently. They also observed activity in the Mahenge region of Tanzania, where the increasing demand for spinel is causing a huge increase in mining operations.
The GIA field gemology team has visited all the main ruby, sapphire, emerald and spinel-producing areas in Asia and Africa. GIA researchers use this unparalleled collection of samples for their advanced studies of colored stones and samples are often shared with leading academic institutions to support their research efforts. The same data supports the Institute’s science-based colored stone identification and origin report services. GIA scientists and gemologists have also made collection and research trips to gem-producing locations in North and South America.
“GIA’s gemologists documented the development of the Mozambican ruby mines from their discovery in 2009 to becoming the world’s leading source of ruby,” said Wim Vertriest, manager of field gemology in the GIA laboratory in Bangkok, Thailand. “We were also the first team of foreign gemologists to visit the Ethiopian emerald mines after their discovery in 2016.”
Information gathered during the field gemology trips also informs GIA’s comprehensive gemology education curricula. Accounts of the trips and the results of research based on the samples collected are often published in Gems & Gemology, GIA’s quarterly professional journal.
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