The San Diego Natural History Museum is announced last week a new exhibition, entitled All That Glitters: The Splendor and Science of Gems and Minerals. The exhibition, which opens May 15th, is scheduled to remain on display at the Museum through April 2012.

One of the signature pieces in the exhibition is the Aurora Diamond Butterfly of Peace, created as a symbol of the soul and of positive transformation by diamond dealer and artist Alan Bronstein. Natural fancy-colored diamonds are so rare that it took 12 years to amass the Butterfly’s 240 diamonds, paired for color and size, in this arrangement. In daylight-equivalent lighting, the diamond butterfly shows hues of yellow, orange, pink, blue, green, and violet. Under long-wave ultraviolet light, many of these diamonds exhibit the phenomenon known as fluorescence.

The core of All That Glitters features gems and minerals of California, including tourmaline, spessartite (orange garnet), kunzite, topaz, Morganite, aquamarine, quartz, opal, scheelite, colemanite, covellite, sphene, herderite, and jade. A special case will spotlight benitoite, the California state gemstone.

For more information, visit www.sdnhm.org.

JCK