Fun Gem Facts about Zircon, the Original December Birthstone

December’s birthstone combines a gorgeous green blue color with a fiery brilliance akin to diamond. In fact for centuries, people confused colorless zircon with diamond. Today, unfortunately, many consumers think zircon is the same as lab-grown cubic zirconia. This error keeps them from enjoying zircon’s sparkling beauty.

Aging gracefully

How long has zircon been around? For jewelry purposes, we can date it back to the Middle Ages and earlier. But zircon’s physical history stretches back beyond imagination, quite literally, billions of years. We know because in February 2014, an electric blue grain of zircon, no larger than a grain of sand, was found in the Jack Hills of Western Australia. Careful testing revealed that this tiny zircon dated back 4.4 billion years, making it the oldest mineral on the planet.

A slight digression: Zircon and diamond

Colorless zircon looks more like diamond than any other natural gemstone. And zircon is denser/heavier than diamond meaning a one-carat zircon is smaller than a one-carat diamond. Zircon’s impressive dispersion of .039 is very close to diamond’s dispersion of .044. Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s get back to blue zircon!

 Top Shade
At its purest, zircon is colorless. But with impurities other colors emerge: a yellowish brown, orange, red, and very rarely in green and blue. Since blue remains the most popular color, more had to be created. As often happens with gemstones, heating proved to be the solution. It transformed brown zircon into blue zircon. However, not just any brown zircon will do. South East Asia is rich with the right balance of impurities to yield blue zircon.

Stone of Virtue

Zircon is endowed with some incredible powers of self-improvement. Its abilities are so good, it has been called a “stone of virtue” and so it seems to be.

Zircon can —

• Reestablish or realign our ethics and morals with universal truths.
• Enhance innocence, purity, and constancy.
• Promote unions of the mind, body, spirit, or emotion.
• Attract love.
• Increase stamina and perseverance.
• Secures safe passage and friendly welcome for travelers.
• Heal injuries and sooth pain.

December birthdays can’t keep all this goodness to themselves. Every customer deserves these gifts!