January Birthstone

Gifts that are made of precious material and symbolizes a person's month of birth in the Gregorian Calendar is called a Birthstone. These precios materials are commonly known as birthday stones and sometimes used as an anniversary gift that is related to the person's age and year of birth.

The garnet is a mineral used since the Bronze Age as abrasives and gemstones. Garnets are sometimes in the shade of red and are also seen in a wide variety of colors. Garnet is derived from the latin "granatus" meaning "grain" and refers to Punica granatum which is a plant having red seeds that is similar in shape, color, and size to some garnet crystals. The Pomegranate is the name of the plant that produces a red fruit with seeds. A jewelry that is made out of garnet has been discovered as early as the Bronze Age, about 3000 bc in burial sites. Garnet is believed to protect the dead in the after life by early communities.

There are six common kinds of garnet and they are named based on the mineral's chemical composition. The six common species are pyrope, spessartite, grossular, almandine, uvarovite, and andradite.

The garnet species are available in many colors including orange, red, blue, purple, green, brown, pink, black, and colorless. The rarest of them all is the blue garnet, which was discovered in the late 1990's in Madagascar. The blue garnet can also be found in some parts of the United States, Turkey and Russia. The Garnet can change color from blue green during daytime to purple in incandescent light because of the presence of a high amount of vanadium. In some instances, their color may change to the shades of gray, brown, green, beige, and blue.

Garnets crystallize in the cubic system, they have three axes that are all equal in length and are perpendicular to each other. They do not show cleavage so they form sharp irregular pieces when exposed to mechanical stress.

The chemical composition of a garnet differenciates and the atomic bonds in some species are stronger than in others. This mineral group has a range of hardness on the Mohs Scale of 6.5 to 7.5. They are used for abrasive purposes.

Garnets are the main mineral when it comes to interpreting the birth of many metamorphic rocks and igneous by using the instrument called as geothermobarometer. Unlike other minerals, diffusion of elements are slower in a garnet. A garnet is very useful in identifying metamorphic facies of rocks. Example, eclogite can be defined as a rock with basalt composition.

Garnet having pure crystals are commonly used as gemstones. The best abrasive and the most common replacement for silica sand used in sand blasting are Garnet sand. If you mix the garnet sand with very high pressure water, the garnet can be an alternative to cut steel and other materials in hydroelectric jets. The Garnet sant can also be used for water filtration.

Garnet is considered as the modern January birthstone and is the gem designated for the 2nd and the 6th wedding anniversary.

In the middle ages, primitive cultures believed that red stones would stop people from bleeding. Early cultures believed that garnets were helpful in preventing and curing blood infections and disorders.

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