silicates
Uvarovite
Ca3Cr2(SiO4)3
- Crystal system
- cubic
- Hardness
- 6.5–7 on the Mohs scale
- Lustre
- vitreous
- Colour
- Emerald green
- Where it forms
- In chromium-rich serpentinites and chromite deposits, almost always as tiny crystals lining cavities rather than as anything cuttable.
- Chiefly from
- Ural Mountains, RussiaFinlandQuebec, Canada
Why it is that colour
Chromium, as an essential component rather than an impurity. Uvarovite is the only garnet that is always green.
Safety
Safe to handle. Chromium here is bound in the structure, not in the hexavalent soluble form that is the industrial hazard.
Where it comes from
Specimen material only, chiefly Russian and Finnish. Cut stones are very rare because crystals large enough to facet are almost unknown.
Historical use
Named in 1832 after Count Sergei Uvarov, a Russian statesman and collector. It is sold as sparkling green druzy plates rather than as cut gems.
Recorded as history and attributed where possible. That a stone was used for something establishes that people used it, not that it worked.
Worth knowing
Uvarovite is here as a counterexample. It is a genuinely rare, genuinely beautiful emerald-green garnet, and it has almost no presence in the crystal trade — because the crystals are a millimetre across and cannot be made into a tumbled stone, a wand or a sphere.
What gets sold is shaped by what can be shaped. That sounds obvious and it is worth stating, because the resulting catalogue of "meaningful" stones is often presented as though it reflected something about the stones rather than about tumbling machines.
Identity checked against IMA-CNMNC master list, June 2025.