Rocks in the News - Feb 26 2009

Angelina Jolie's Emeralds had everyone buzzing the day after the Oscar's

TanzaniteOne and Gemfields duke it out and then TanzaniteOnes former head joins Gemfields and now UK's Gemfields brings Zambian emeralds to India and more on Gemfields in general

GIA cut's staff by 9% (It has also raised the price of it's classes.. but they didn't put out a press release about that.) and announced the 2009 Richard T. Liddicoat Scholarships

Times were slow at the 2009 Tucson Gem Show (not that anyone was suprised.)

AGTA issued an alert on dyed tourmaline (okay..not surprised by this one either.)

Fracture filled rubies entering the market ( or this one...there was an article about this in Gems and Gemology in 2006. )

JA Competition Winners Announced

I guess I shouldn't ignore the whole hoopla surrounding gemstone diffusion particularly tourmaline.. don't even know where to begin linking for that, don't want to give free advertising to any of them, so just do a google search if you are interested, but be sure to read both sides of the debate. Here: http://gemologyonline.com/Forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7556 That's the link to gemologyonline's debate on the subject. That should cover it.

Can you help? Fundraiser for Ryan

http://www.for-ryan.org/
This is close to the heart of one of our fellow rock hounds. Jon (at Gearloose) has created this page for a friend of his to help off set medical costs for their child. Please help if you can.

What's your favorite gemological tool?

Take our poll here!

http://prettyrock.com/prforum/index.php?topic=156.0

More on our Brazil Trip...

http://www.prettyrock.com/brazil-trip-2009.htm

We have added some information pages on our upcoming trip to Brazil, and a form to make requests for rough...serious or wishful thinking :)

Irradiated Blue Topaz and the NRC

There is so much false information and rumors flying around the internet that I thought it would be good to post a link to the latest and greatest info from the NRC:

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/irradiated-gemstones.html