Diopside can be green, brown, violet, black or white. However, the most famous one is the chrome variety of this gemstone, on its pretty bright green colour!
In crystallography, if you check the etymology of this gemstone, then you get information about it! Diopside in Greek means two different faces ( dio= two) refering to the two different ways of orientation of its vertical prism. Its hardness on Mohs scale is around 5, so you should be extremely careful. Sometimes, this beauty might exhibit some optical effects, such as chatoyancy or asterism. If under the light you can see bright bands of lights crossing each other, like they form a star, then you have the asterism effect. On diopside this effect is due to the orientation of magnetite crystals, thus your gemstone might show magnetism.
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| Rough Diopside |
When it comes to jewellery, it is not that common to find pieces of diopside, because it has a low hardness and it is not such a practical gem. However, chrome diopside due to its vivid bright green colour is used in jewellery. A pair of earrings in gold plated silver leaf decoration and rough diopsides can be seen on the photo below. This pair can be worn all day, because it has the leaf decoration which makes it cool and modern but also the gold plated metal make it more shiny for night outfits too.
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| Pair of earrings in gold plated leaf decoration with rough diopsides |
If you want to find some pieces with diopside gemstones, try on Etsy website . You can choose between rings, pendants, bracelets and earrings, so that you will find the one that suits you the most!
What a lovely blog it is! Thanks for sharing it with us :)
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