Apatite name is coming from a greek word "apate" meaning "to deceit" as it is a gemstone that can easily confuse because of the color shown by some specimens that turn from blue to green when we move the stone! Apatite can also possibly be mistaken with other gemstones and especially tourmaline.
Apatite with a hardness of 5 on the Moh's scale of hardness is a rather soft stone. This characteristic along with the fact that it is a brittle stone make it of limited use in jewelry as these stone often break when the jeweler try to set them. Cutting and setting apatites is a real challenge! Apatite is also sensitive to acids.
This beautiful stone occurs in many colors: blue, green, pink, red, yellow, violet and colorless. The blue and green shades can make such exceptional stones that once you see them, you will never forget them. Stones can be transparent to opaque. The blue Burmese apatite which we offer you on Gemwow is often "dichroic" which means that it can appear to be two different colors: Blue and green depending on which way you look at the stone. In other colors this particularity is less apparent. Apatite fashioned as a cut gemstone is very popular with collectors, It sometimes show a cat's eye effect, a ray of light running through the center of the stone resembling a cat's eye.
Apatite is a basic fluoro and chloro calcium phosphate: Ca5(PO4)(F,OH,Cl) that crystallize in the hexagonal system. Blue apatite owns its color to manganese, pink to color center (these apatites traditionally from Mexico see their color fading with exposition to sun) and other colors to rare earth elements. Apatite is an abundant material that occurs in many different types of rocks: Marbles, pegmatites, ore veins in many areas of the world.
In addition to Mogok in Burma, it is also mined mainly in Sri Lanka, Brazil, Mexico and also: Russia, Africa, Sweden, Spain, Canada and Mexico. As with most gemstones, the color of the stones will vary with locality.
