Hello!
Today we will talk about emeralds.
Emeralds are famous for their color and beauty.
Their appearance was facilitated by a series of events taking place on Earth over millions
of years.
Emerald is one of the most coveted, famous and historical gemstones of all time.
As part of the beryl gemstone family, which also includes aquamarine and morganite, emerald
has been mined for about 4,000 years.
From ancient Egypt to the present day, anyone who has seen the gemstone's intense vibrant
green has fallen under its spell, and it can be found throughout history in some of the
most stunning jewelry ever made.
It belongs to semi-precious stones of the first order.
Emeralds are relatively soft.
The main criteria for the quality of an emerald are its color, and then transparency.
Their value is determined by the purity, brilliance and depth of color.
Emeralds are mostly cloudy and full of cracks.
The ideal emerald is a transparent stone of evenly distributed saturated color.
Large flawless emeralds of dense tone weighing from 5 carats are valued more than diamonds.
High quality stones are very rare.
Most of them are found in the Colombian deposits of Tunja and Muso discovered in the middle
of the 16th century.
Quality emeralds are also mined in Zambia, Brazil and Egypt.
Lower quality emeralds are found in Salzburg (Austria), in the Morne Mountains (Ireland),
on Lake Mjosen (Norway) and in some other places.
Emeralds are also mined in Russia, USA, Canada, Australia, Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy,
Germany, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and other countries.
In our time, from 50 to 95% of the production of all emeralds falls on Colombia (the specific
percentage varies greatly from year to year in different directions).
Between 2000 and 2010, Colombian emerald production increased by 78%.
In addition to ordinary emeralds, Trapiche emerald is also mined in Colombia.
Emerald Trapiche is a rare variety of emerald.
It is characterized by a six-pointed radial pattern of radiant spokes of dark impurities.,
Colombian emeralds were shaped by a unique process that resulted in the finest examples
of gemstones anyone has ever seen.
Most Colombian emeralds come from mines in Muzo, Cosuez, Chivora and Somondoco in the
remote shale mountains along the eastern Andes north of Bogata in the province of Boyaca.
The emeralds here are found in sedimentary rocks, which is very unusual because, as a
rule, gemstones are found in igneous or metamorphic rocks as a by-product.
In them, strong pressure and high temperature recrystallize the rock into precious stones.
Here, there are no high temperatures and hydrothermal fluids move through cracks and crevices of
shale rocks.
Grab ingredients along the way and mix them together to form something completely new.
This process is known as metasomatism.
Colombian emeralds have a special composition, as they contain virtually no iron.
Although iron makes up five percent of the earth's crust, with increasing depth, its
amount increases.
And it is the presence of iron that significantly changes the color of gemstones.
As of the 1990s, emeralds produced in Colombia were worth over half a billion dollars, and
more than 60 percent of them were illegally exported.
In 1988, the Colombian government reported that emerald exports to the US totaled only
$11.5 million.
During the same period, $42 million worth of emeralds were declared at US customs in
Miami alone.
It is possible that another 200 million emeralds entered the country illegally.
To get an idea of the extent of the ongoing smuggling, in 1989 the government sponsored
two sales at the Koskez mine, raising only US$750,000, while the mine's total production
was estimated at US$180 million.
The Muzo emerald mine in Colombia is by far the largest and most profitable emerald mine
in the world.
For a thousand years, the largest and highest quality emeralds ever found have been mined
here, including the fist-sized stones that the Chibcha Indians sold to the Spanish conquistadors.
Today Muzo looks like a huge open pit coal mine.
Black powdery slate covers everything around.
Colombians claim that emeralds belong to any inhabitant who can mine them.
From here, a loose atmosphere reigns.
Some large companies have leases, but the bulk of the work is done by thousands of armed
treasure hunters called guaqueros.
Much of the mining is done at the surface with bulldozers scraping away the shale and
exposing the most obvious rocks, but most of it remains in the dumps.
Using long hoses connected to nearby springs, the guaqueros wade through the rock piles
like sharks in a feeding frenzy, snatching up any rocks they can find.
Muzo is sometimes called the most dangerous place on earth.
Almost everyone has a gun stuck in their belt.
Murders occur on average once or twice a day, and before the introduction of the ban on
the sale of beer and wine, the number was even higher.
You have to be crazy to go to the mine.
It is recommended to arrive by helicopter and not by car.
Bandits hide on the roads, taking cash from arriving travelers and emeralds from those
leaving.
Even large convoys of 50 vehicles are attacked, dozens of dead are reported.
Brazil is a producer of lower quality emeralds.
These are emerald mines in the Brazilian region of Santa Terezinha.
To see how emeralds are mined, you should go down into the mine to a depth of 257 meters.
At a mine in Brazil, miners descend in groups of three on a small platform with the help
of a winch.
The legs are pushed through two loops, it turns out something similar to swing seats.
You need to hold on tight so as not to fall while moving down.
Geologist Fred Ward described such a shaft as the blackest hole he had ever seen, and
the way down as the most dizzying ride of his life.
This is how the adit of the emerald mine looks like at a depth of 257 meters.
This is a fantastic picture.
It's pretty damp and dirty here.
A large metal bucket is sent down the tracks to the miners.
They use shovels to fill it with rocks.
The bucket from the mine is then hauled to the surface using the same rope that the miners
descend and ascend.
Rock layers can be found on the walls, which may contain emeralds.
They stretch in the form of a special layer along the adit.
This is the geological formation in which emeralds are formed.
These pieces of quartz may contain an emerald.
The gemstones actually sparkle with green light - these are talc schists, where the
perfect combination of elements, heat and pressure initiated the growth of precious
crystals.
The trunks are not strengthened, and at the bottom, groundwater seeps through the walls,
which often causes collapses.
With the help of the same winch, the ascent to the surface takes place.
The owner of the mine carefully examines the mined emeralds.
Only the best copies will go to the store for sale.
The characteristics of the stones are important here.
The first is good crystallization, and the second is the absence of cracks in the material.
But most importantly - an amazing bright color.
Brazil probably produces five times as many carats as Colombia, but Brazilian emeralds
are smaller and of poorer quality.
Together, the two countries produce up to 70 percent of the world's emerald supply,
but Colombian emeralds sell for around $500 million, while the entire shipment from Brazil
sells for just a fifth of that amount.
Another country producing high-quality emeralds is Zambia.
About twenty percent of the world's emeralds come from Zambia, and about half of them are
smuggled out of the country on the black market, despite the government's best efforts to crack
down on the illegal trade.
Kagem is the largest emerald mine in Zambia.
You need to understand how smuggling works at the grassroots level.
The more workers a mine hires, the more production drops.
On the other side of the river from the mine, independent miners move tons of earth in search
of gems.
When asked how they are doing, they usually answer: "There are no Emeralds yet."
Most of the emerald brokers in Zambia are from West Africa, usually Senegalese.
They offer current world prices and pay in hard currency on the spot.
Emerald mining began in the Kafubu region of Zambia in the 1960s, but it wasn't until
after the 1980s that Zambia became a major emerald producer.
In 2008, a company took control of the Kagem mine and turned it into a modern, highly sophisticated
and efficient operation.
They combined several small quarries into one huge one, which they called the Cham quarry.
With a width and length of more than 1 km and a depth of more than 120 meters, it is
the largest emerald quarry in the world.
In the quarry, a combination of mechanized mining (when miners remove rock that does
not contain emeralds) and manual mining, when miners work in an area rich in emeralds, can
be observed.
It's a hard work.
Workers work under the scorching sun for 12 hours a day to find these magnificent crystals.
The mined ore goes to the processing plant.
An average of 45 tons of ore passes through the conveyor per hour.
Large stones enter the crusher, the rest of the ore wakes up through a wire mesh.
The emerald ore is then washed.
At this stage, workers are looking for emerald crystals.
The ore moves along four conveyors, depending on the size of the stones.
So on this conveyor, workers select emeralds ranging in size from three to thirteen millimeters.
They rake the ore with a metal rod.
Security is watching closely.
The worker immediately places the found emerald in a red box.
It is impossible to look into it, as it is sealed.
On this conveyor, the stones are larger.
If something is missed, the ore falls onto another conveyor moving perpendicularly.
At the end of it are a gemologist and a sorter who control the selection of emeralds.
Proven ore goes to waste.
There are practically no emeralds in the waste.
The factory produces from 50 to 200 kilograms of emeralds per day.
All products are stored in sealed boxes.
Emeralds are stored and processed in this building.
In the vault of emeralds, you
first need to take off your shoes.
Inside, workers sort diamonds into categories.
They are all dressed in white clothes.
Check the quality of stones with a beam.
When leaving the factory, all shift workers are carefully inspected
by security guards.
That's all.
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