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Material World
Mineral · Be3Al2Si6O18

Beryl

A beryllium aluminium silicate — the only ore of beryllium, and, coloured by traces of other elements, both emerald and aquamarine.

Ore Gemstone

Beryl is one mineral wearing several famous names. Pure beryl is colourless; a trace of chromium or vanadium makes emerald, a trace of iron makes aquamarine, manganese makes morganite. The gemstones differ from one another by impurities measured in parts per million, and are otherwise the same substance.

It is also the only ore of beryllium, a metal used where nothing else will do: transparent to X-rays, stiffer for its weight than steel, and dimensionally stable enough for precision optics. Beryllium is also acutely toxic as a dust, which constrains how it can be worked.

How to identify it

Hexagonal prisms, hard at 7.5 to 8, and vitreous. Colour is no guide to identity here — that is the point of the mineral — so the habit and hardness do the work, with emerald distinguished from other green stones by hardness and by its characteristic inclusions rather than by colour.

Medium confidence Weak evidence

How we know: checked recently · only one source, so there is nothing to cross-check it against · stated directly by the source.

How this connects

Where a connection has been confirmed by an outside reference, that reference is named beside it.

is an ore of

  • Beryllium — element · the only commercial source of beryllium Wikidata

is a component of

  • Pegmatite — rock · an accessory of rare-element pegmatites rather than a defining constituent — as ordinary beryl, and as emerald and aquamarine where the trace elements allow

has variety

  • Emerald — mineral variety · coloured green by chromium, vanadium or both — the same mineral as aquamarine and morganite
  • Aquamarine — mineral variety · coloured blue by ferrous iron, and most of it heated to remove the green that ferric iron gives
  • Morganite — mineral variety · coloured pink by manganese, completing the set of three trace elements in one mineral

contains

Sources

  • Material World
    Our own writing
  • Wikidata
    Wikimedia Foundation · Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (public domain dedication)

Questions this page answers

Where it comes from, and what it becomes

Follow Beryl back to what it starts as, and forward into what it becomes. Each step is a documented one — a real route material takes, not a chain of inference.

Downstream — what it becomes

  • Beryl → is an ore of (the only commercial source of beryllium) → Beryllium → is used as (copper-beryllium alloys, for non-sparking and spring applications) → Alloying
  • Beryl → is a component of (an accessory of rare-element pegmatites rather than a defining constituent — as ordinary beryl, and as emerald and aquamarine where the trace elements allow) → Pegmatite