Ruby analysis

Hi everyone,

This is my first post to the forum. I have pretty much finished the course for the IGS certification, and now all thats left is to take the certification tests and get certified, but to be honest im a little bit nervous about a stone that im trying to identify for someone. After going through all the steps, I have positively confirmed that I have a ruby on my hands, and its a rather large one, cabochon, 40 cts approximately. The next step was to identify if it was natural or synthetic. After closely examining, I saw what I thought at first was a burst from heat treatment, so I was inclined to believe the stone was natural. I went on to look for curved striae, and this is when I started to have doubts. One by one, they started to increase. First I found tiny “striae” like curves on parts of the stone, but wasn’t able to confirm that they were actually striae because I’m not familiar with it. I than went on to capture with my microscope what looked like a “nail head” inclusion. After that, I assume that I saw “rain” (could be a finger print inclusion). Finally, I saw something which looked like flux veils. The only thing is, they are different colors than described in the texts. I took photographs of everything, and was hoping someone could help me to identify what I am looking at. Thanks alot for your help!



Flux veils?

Hello … This stone had so much heat applied to it that it started to boil internally. The rows of bubbles are also curved and not razor straight. Apply some Long Wave UV light to this stone and see if it lights up like a hot coal. If it does, then it has been color treated and lab created. :wink:

mhutton,

The picture with the curves lines on the bottom of the cab, what are those exactly? Are they striae lines? They are rather larged so I assumed no, but I mean they could be, im not really familiar with what they would look like on a large stone. Thanks for the advise, ill try it today.