What is it?

[zeolite]

Newest rock in my collection. The color and tone is accurate in the picture. What is it?

 

[kenny]

Round, pink and very pretty.

 

[Largosmom]

guessing game? Spinel

 

[diamondringlover]

its pretty

 

[Kismet]

How big is it (carat and mm)?

 

[T L]

Malaya garnet?

 

[baby nurse]

Malaya garnet?

 

[zeolite]

guessing game? Spinel

To me, the color and tone just screams bright pastel spinel. But no. That would have been my guess.

 

[zeolite]

How big is it (carat and mm)?

0.57 cts. I won't give mm yet, since clever minds can calculate density. No, not malaya garnet.

 

[Kismet]

Looks kind of like pink topaz.

 

[zeolite]

I’d better give the answer, since several experts are nearly correct. It is 5.0mm

Malaya garnet from East Africa is 99% orange and brown. Even with a very slight pink in East African malaya, it is still very orange. Madagascar garnets can be quite pink and still classify as malaya, but they have always been slightly orangy pink, darker tone, with visible brown.

This is an extremely pastel pyrope garnet, the most pastel, non-white garnet I’ve ever seen. The color, to my eyes, has a microscopic element of blue, making it a very slight hot pink, not an orangy pink. Again this is not typical of garnet.

Natural spinels will measure a refractive index of 1.718, and very pastel malayas, 1.750. This is singly refractive at 1.732, proving pyrope.

Pyrope garnets have higher than average dispersion, at .022, but usually the deep red color masks this. This garnet, with its pastel tone and excellent cutting angles, shows significant dispersion, with red, orange, yellow, green and blue. It is my poor man’s pink diamond.

 

[Arcadian]

hmmm
Dunno? I'm terrible at these.

I'd say zircon but I've never seen a pink one before so thats out.


um... tourmaline? Maybe from obscure area?

-A

 

[chrono]

Interesting to see such a light toned pyrope garnet.

 

[MakingTheGrade]

I would have guessed garnet, but not pyrope! How wonderfully unusual!

 

[T L]

At least I was close, it was a garnet!

 

[baby nurse]

It's a gorgeous stone!