Gem Minerals

Most minerals can be classified as gem materials for a rock cutter or rock hound. A full list of all the gems that can be found within the United States would consist of all the different kinds of gems that man has ever encountered. Gems can be recognized because of their striking beauty and colorful stones, those that are transparent or translucent should be suspect. Due to the fact that a lot of the gems are heavier than the sand, a gold panner or sluicer on many occasions will be able to find them while looking for gold. In the past the California miners often times threw diamonds away thinking they did not have any value and the gold miners in Montana also threw away rubies and sapphires from their concentrations only later to find out that these were valuable commercial deposits. Some of the gem minerals that can be found in some states include: hematite and marble in Alabama, turquoise and fire agate in Arizona, quartz and diamond in Arkansas, gold and serpentine in California, yule marble and aquamarine in Colorado, garnet in Connecticut, moonstone and agatized coral in Florida, quartz and amethyst in Georgia, black coral in Hawaii, star garnet in Idaho, coral and freshwater pearl in Kentucky and many, many others. Suffice to say, it would be almost impossible for us to provide a list of all of them.