Almandine
Almandine is a brownish-red to purplish-red variety of garnet named after Alabanda, an ancient city in Caria where it was worked. Caria was a region of South-West Asia Minor, now modern day South-West Turkey.
The gemstone is commonly included with needle-shaped crystals of rutile and small crystals of rounded or irregular shapes. Asterism occurs rarely as four or six-rayed stars in stones from India, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and USA (Idaho): large specimens of these stones have been found.
Rhodolite is a mixture of almandine and pyrope garnets. The colour of rhodolite varies from a rose or raspberry red to violet.
Source locations for almandine include: Alaska, Brazil, Europe (Austria and the Czech Republic), Greenland, India, Madagascar, Mozambique and Sri Lanka.
Properties of the Gemstone and Additional Information
| Gemstone type: | Almandine is a variety of garnet. |
| Crystal System: | Cubic |
| Chemical Composition: | Iron aluminium silicate - Fe3Al2(SiO4)3 |
| Colour: | Red with a brown to purple tint. |
| Lustre: | Bright vitreous |
| Pleochroism: | None |
| Dispersion: | Low |
| Hardness: | 7 1/2 on the Mohs' scale |
| Toughness: | Good |
| Cleavage: | None |
| Density in gm/cc: | 3.8 to 4.2 |
| Double refraction: | No |
| Refractive index: | 1.76-1.81 |
Common Treatments
Almandine is not normally treated