Gemstones: A Complete Color Reference for Precious and Semiprecious Stones of the World

This fascinating work provides a truly stunning visual guide to the beautiful world of gemstones. It brings together a wealth of information in clearly worded text accompanied by a dazzling collection of color photographs showing gems in their natural and cut states.

From subjects as diverse as identifying and collecting minerals and advanced testing, to ethical sourcing of gems, every aspect of gemstones is covered, and is presented with a wealth of research in easy-to-understand sections, making it a must-have reference work for anyone who wants to delve into the exciting world of gems.

This book guides you through all aspects of the world of gems, exploring the different characteristics and properties of minerals, gems and precious metals.

• Combines cutting-edge writing with beautiful full-color photography that captures the beauty of a fascinating array of natural and cut stones.
• Presents a wonderfully designed, in-depth directory that identifies each gemstone in turn, exploring every facet of common and rare gemstones and precious metals.
• Includes an at-a-glance gallery of gemstones in miniature, plus a failsafe step-by-step identification system.
• Reveals interesting facts and surrounding folklore, as well as formation, structure, physical properties, and characteristics of gems, and details of how each might be worked and displayed.

Softcover, full color, 320 pages
Book size: 8-1/4 x 5 inches

About the Authors: Karen Hurrell is a freelance journalist and bestselling author of many books, including Snapshots in Time and The Unexplained. She has been fascinated by rocks, minerals and gems for over a decade. Karen lives in London, England with her husband and three children.

Mary L. Johnson earned degrees in geochemistry from Caltech and mineralogy and crystallography from Harvard. She has performed research on sulfide minerals, high-pressure chemistry and physics, outer solar system processes, meteorites and the early solar system and gemstones and their treatments. For 11 years she was West Coast Manager of Research for the Gemological Institute of America in Carlsbad, California. She now owns her own scientific consulting firm.