Red beryl

Red beryl, formerly known as bixbite and marketed as red emerald or scarlet emerald, is an extremely rare variety of beryl as well as one of the rarest minerals on Earth. The gem gets its red color from manganese ions embedded inside of beryllium aluminium cyclosilicate crystals. The color of red beryl is stable up to . Red Beryl can come in various tints like strawberry, bright ruby, cherry, and orange. The largest crystals of red beryl are about wide and long. However, most crystals are under long. Recently, the red variety of pezzottaite has been sold in markets as red beryl by some sellers. Red beryl was discovered in 1904 by Maynard Bixby in the Wah Wah mountains in Utah. In 1912 the gem was named bixbite by Alfred Eppler after Maynard Bixby. The old synonym "bixbite" is deprecated, since it can cause confusion with the mineral bixbyite. The greatest concentration of gem-grade red beryl comes from the Ruby-Violet Claim in the Wah Wah Mountains of mid-western Utah, discovered in 1958 by Lamar Hodges, of Fillmore, Utah, while he was prospecting for uranium. This claim was bought by Denise Knoeller as part of Red Emerald Inc. in 2020. Red beryl is very rare and has been reported only from a handful of locations: Wah Wah Mountains, Paramount Canyon, Round Mountain and Juab County, all in the south-western United States. The narrow geographic range suggests that the specific conditions needed for its formation do not occur frequently. This gem is a thousand times rarer than gold. The Utah Geological Survey estimated that one red beryl is found for every 150,000 diamonds. According to Gemmological Association of Great Britain a 2 carat red beryl is as rare as a 40 carat diamond. Red beryl is valued roughly the same price or higher than emerald despite being a hundred times rarer. Its rarity has made it less popular but red beryl crystals that are over 1 carat can sell for US$20,000. In 2008, one carat could sell for US$5000 or more.