Rubies, garnets, jaspers, bixbites and tourmaline are examples of precious and semi-precious red gemstones. Other natural red stones that can be valuable when properly identified, polished and cut include red agate and red labradorite. Treasure hunting for raw gems can be both back-breaking while exhilarating, especially when the searching leads to a valuable find.
Digging for natural gemstones can be rewarding.
Red Agates
Red agates also are used to make jewelry just as rubies and other fine gems. Red agates are usually translucent and sometimes opaque. Red banded agate is distinctive with alternating bands of a type of quartz called cryptocrystalline. They often are hollow. Therefore, true natural red agates are not as heavy as synthetic stones. Lace agates found in Mexico, as their name implies, feature delicate designs.
Red Labradorite
Red labradorite or Oregon sunstones are the official gemstone of the state of Oregon, the only place the rare red stones can be found. Red labradorite belongs to the feldspar group of rock-forming minerals, according to the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. While labradorites come in various colors, blood red is very rare and the most valuable. Red labradorite changes color from red to green depending on lighting conditions. Red labradorites are found in lava flows and are usually encased in basalt.
Red Jasper
Red jasper is reddish-brown rather than brilliant red in color. One way to determine if a stone is red jasper or a look-alike is to use a knife. A knife will leave scratch marks on a fake, but not on a authentic red jasper. Under a magnifying glass red jasper also will reveal black streaks of hematite or other color variations.
Red Garnets
There are three basic species of red garnets: pyrope, almandine and spessartite. The most common pyrope garnets are a mixture of pyrope and almandine and are dark red in color. Chrome pyrope garnets, which are found in the state of Arizona, are very dark red in color, resembling rubies. Some spessartite garnets are light orange while others are mixed with almandine, making them red or red-brown in color. In the rough, a garnet has a glassy luster.
Red Beryl
Beryl is the mineral classification in which emeralds belong, however, other colors of beryl are also used as gemstones, including red beryl, sometimes referred to as red emerald or bixbite. Gem-quality red beryl can only be found in the Wah Wah Mountains in Utah and is more valuable than gold, according to the Utah Geological Survey. In rough form, red beryl is found as hexagonal crystals ranging in color from red-orange to red-purple or raspberry-red.
Rubies
A ruby, also known as red corundum, is usually medium to dark red. Other colors of corundums are classified as sapphires; for example if a stone is light red, it is often considered a pink sapphire rather than a ruby. A ruby has a hardness of nine on the Mohs Scale of Mineral Hardness. An instrument called a dichroscope can be used to distinguish a red gemstone such as a ruby from glass but is not useful in determining if the stone is natural or synthetic, according to the book "Gem Identification Made Easy" by gem experts Antoinette Matlins and A.C. Bonanno.
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