11th Jul 2010
Moissanite Throughout History
Introduced to the market in the 1990s, Moissanite is a diamond like gemstone that, due to its rarity in nature, is usually produced in a lab. The ease of manufacturing today is a direct outcome of the hard work of a Nobel prize winning scientist, who discovered it over 100 years ago. The stone has such extraordinary brilliance that jewelers easily differentiate between genuine diamond and Moissanite, making it more easily used as a gemstone in its own right rather than a true imitation diamond.
Even on a diamond tester though, the stone shows similar thermal qualities to a true diamond. However, Moissanite can be distinguished from any other lab created stone if it gets soiled as this is when it develops a color. This quality of the stone is also similar to that of a true diamond. However, one should not get confused between Moissanite and Cubic Zirconia, which is another man made stone that possesses no color and flaws like any natural diamond.
Origin of Moissanite
When 50,000 years ago a meteorite crashed into the Arizona desert, ir produced a crater which is a landmark to this day – known as the Meteor Crater. The crystals that the meteorite contained were much, much later identified as Moissanite. In the year 1893, Henri Moissan studied the meteorite fragments and discovered a shimmering material in minute quantity, which was silicon carbide.
Later in the year 1905, the mineral was officially named after Moissan, who discovered it and interest was shown in the possible jewelry applications, but it wasn’t until the 1980s that a company called Cree Labs made it possible to reproduce this gemstone in a controlled environment. They developed the stone in the lab in the same form as it was naturally found in Arizona.
However, it was not until in the1990s that Charles and Colvard, masters in diamond cutting, actually made new gemstones from the shimmering rocks and it actually took them three years to introduce the final Moissanite stone in the market for usage in jewelry.
My Lab Created Diamond has more information about the history and use of this fascinating gemstone.
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