Another Synthetic Emerald

By Gary Roskin, G.G., FGA -- JCK Online, September 1, 2006

A new hydrothermally grown emerald has entered the market. The Tairus Created Emerald is similar to a product made by the manufacturer in Australia, the Byron synthetic emerald.

Scientists at Tairus’s four-story, 50,000-square-foot research facility and production plant in Novosibirsk, Russia, began working on the synthetic emerald project in 1998. The hydrothermal method is a process in which emerald constituents are placed into a high-pressure chamber filled with solution. The solution then precipitates onto a seed plate of beryl to aid in the growth of the material.

As a synthetic, the new Tairus Emerald has the same basic gemological and chemical properties of natural emeralds. However, the bluish-green stone gets its color from trace amounts of vanadium and copper. (Natural emeralds owe their colors to vanadium, iron, and chromium.)

According to the authors of a May 2006 article published in The Journal of Gemmology, the classic chevrons and undulating growth lines found in hydrothermal emeralds are caused by chromium, iron, and nickel.

“The Tairus Created Emerald is a lighter green color than the traditional created emerald,” says Edward Weiss, director of sales for EMA Jewelry Inc., a jewelry manufacturer and wholesaler based in New York with factories in New York, Thailand, and Mexico.

“In the past 15 years, prices of created gems have plummeted twentyfold,” says Walter Barshai, managing director of Tairus Created Gems. “Now that they’ve reached absolute bottom, there is a need for rejuvenation, and this can only come from a product far superior to everything else.”