How do gemstones get their color?
Chemistry For Your Life
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The Impurities in Gemstones
Aluminum oxide is the base mineral for rubies and sapphires. But if you have chromium in the rubies, chromium impurities, it makes rubies in the aluminum oxide. And if you have titanium and iron impurities in the aluminium oxide, that's a sapphire. So they're the same base mineral, but depending on what transition metal you add in and what extra little shelf that brings with it, it can totally change the light that's capable of being absorbed.
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