The green tsavorite is a youthful gemstone with a very long history. Its home is the East-African bushland along the border between Kenya and Tanzania.In 1967 a British geologist named Campbell R. Bridges was looking for gemstones in the mountains in the northeast corner of Tanzania potato-like nodules of rock containing green grains and crystal fragments of green grossularite. The same mineral belonging to the garnet family.
In 1971 the green grossularite was found in Kenya.
In 1974 Tiffany & Co. began a broad campaign which soon made the tsavorite well known in the USA.
Tiffany & Co. came up with the name Tsavorite from modern mineralogical methods where gemstones are given a name that ends in 'ite' and 'Tsavo' is in honor of the Tsavo National Park where Tsavorite was discovered.
Tsavorite is so desirable because of its vivid and radiant green color which ranges from light green, an intense blue-green and a deep forest green. Tsavorite is also valuable on account of its great brilliance because it has a high refractive index (1.734/44).
Tsavorite doesn't need any treatment and rate a 7.5 on the Mohs scale.
Only in very rare cases a raw crystal of over 5 cts will be discovered, so a cut tsavorite of more than two carats is rare.
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