Cobalt Spinel

Recently discovered , quickly stormed the gem market , this gem type is also exclusive. It belongs to gem family known as spinel but unlike the rest, this is a very rare gem. 

These gems are usually discovered in town called Okkampitiya which is 160km away from Gem capital Ratnapura. Many gem merchants thought these as fake or artificial gems. 

Gem Expert Dunil Palitha Gunasekara first manage to differentiate this modern mineral family. Biggest Cobalt Spinel Gem was discovered in 2009 from a mine in Okkampitiya weigh at 2.2kg. Chemical composition consist of mainly oxide minerals. These are usually Magnesium (Mg) and Silicon (Si).

But Cobalt spinel consist of Cobalt element in it , giving shiny blue color known as “electric blue”. There plenty of blue spinel gems which are commonly found in mines , yet spinels with electric blue are very rare, at the rate of 1%. Density is between 7.5 and 8.