It is not often that a gemmologist gets to see something from Antarctica, a continent that still enjoys the protection of the 1961 international treaty intended to protect and preserve the untapped uniqueness of the biosphere from the rapacious consumption of mankind. This Gem Note, featured in the Journal of Gemmology, covers an exciting opportunity that presented itself when faceted samples from a research trip to Mount Erebus reached the laboratory. I could get the graphs and numbers from the battery of laboratory equipment, but it was Nathan Renfro’s brilliant photomicrography that captured the essence of these samples.
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