elements
Moissanite
SiC
- Also known as
- silicon carbidecarborundum
- Crystal system
- hexagonal
- Hardness
- 9.25 on the Mohs scale
- Lustre
- adamantine
- Colour
- Colourless, green, yellow, grey
- Where it forms
- Naturally, almost only in meteorites and in a few extremely reduced terrestrial settings. It is one of the rarest natural minerals there is.
- Chiefly from
- Canyon Diablo meteorite, Arizona, United StatesWyoming, United States
Why it is that colour
Pure silicon carbide is colourless; nitrogen and other impurities give the tints.
Safety
Safe to handle. Silicon carbide dust is an abrasive; the compound is chemically inert.
Where it comes from
Every moissanite on sale is laboratory-grown. Natural moissanite exists in quantities too small to cut. Synthetic silicon carbide has been manufactured since 1893 as an abrasive, and gem-quality growth was commercialised in 1998.
Historical use
Carborundum, the industrial abrasive, is this compound, and it was one of the first synthetic abrasives, made by Edward Acheson in 1891. Silicon carbide is now important in power electronics for electric vehicles, because it handles high voltages better than silicon.
Recorded as history and attributed where possible. That a stone was used for something establishes that people used it, not that it worked.
What is attributed to it, and since when
No traditional attribution — natural moissanite was identified in 1893 by Henri Moissan in the Canyon Diablo meteorite, and he initially thought it was diamond. Everything about its present role is commercial and post-1998.
Described, not endorsed. Dating a claim is not the same as assessing it — but an association that first appears in a book published in 1985 is not an ancient inheritance, whatever the label says. A sincere account of feeling better is compatible with the stone doing nothing — see the placebo effect.
Sold as this, but not
Worth knowing
Moissanite is an unusual case: a genuine IMA-approved mineral species that essentially nobody has ever seen in nature. It occurs in meteorites as microscopic grains, and Henri Moissan found it in the Canyon Diablo fragments in 1893.
Everything sold as moissanite is grown in a laboratory, and unusually the trade is entirely open about this. It is harder than anything except diamond, has higher dispersion, costs a tenth as much, and involves no mining. As a diamond alternative it is honest about what it is, which sets it apart from most of the substitutions recorded in this collection.
It is also, in its industrial form, quietly important. Silicon carbide power electronics are a significant part of why electric vehicle drivetrains have become as efficient as they have.
Identity checked against IMA-CNMNC master list, June 2025.