Jeff Hapeman of Earth’s Treasury (Westtown, Pennsylvania) loves a gemstone with a good story.

Susi Smither discusses her sustainable, responsible, and ethically based business practices.

Mother-and-son team Laurie and Geoffrey Watt (Mayer & Watt, Maysville, Kentucky) noted that while there were plenty of customers at the AGTA show this year, the formula for success was a wide selection of materials and competitive pricing.

The third Jewelry Industry Summit, held in Tucson February 2–3, revealed the successful implementation of several initiatives mapped out since the conference’s inception in 2016.

The Jewelry Development Impact Index (JDI), one of the initiatives from the second Jewelry Industry Summit in January 2017, has become the flagship project of the Minerals, Materials and Society (MMS) program at the University of Delaware. Patricia Syvrud, development manager of MMS, discussed the program, which she calls a “road map to responsibility.”

Advanced testing helps to identify the largest gahnospinel seen at any GIA laboratory.

In recent years, the colored stone world has seen a growing appetite for unusual colors.

An update on activity at the Coscuez emerald source, as well as ruby deposits in Mozambique.

Bangles resembling nephrite and jadeite were not what they appeared to be.

The Carlsbad lab identifies a color-change Burmese sapphire with a unique chemistry profile.

A summary of “The Ethics of Jewelry” panel, held at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art on January 25, 2019.

A graduate of GIA’s Jewelry Design program in Taiwan is the recipient of the Buccellati Award.

At the AGTA show, Rod Griffin (Rod Griffin Boulder Opals, Silverado, California, and Queensland, Australia) told us that the world market for all types of opals continues to be strong, but Australia’s opal industry is shrinking due to the costs, challenges, and changing regulations of mining.

Eye-catching stones at Jeffrey Bilgore’s AGTA booth.

Presents a simplified but comprehensive classification of gem tourmaline species based on quantitative measurement of six common major elements.

The president of Oregon’s Desert Sun Mining and Gems provides the outlook for activity at the Ponderosa sunstone mine.