QuestionI was told that if a gem stone has inclusions it must be natural, because artificial stones don't have inclusions. Is this true?
AnswerThanks for your excellent question Jennifer! This is a very common myth- that only natural stones have "flaws" that gemologists call "inclusions". The truth is, even stones that are manufactured in a laboratory can have inclusions. Depending on the method used to produce the stone, some can have many inclusions.
A good example is synthetic emerald. An emerald that is grown in a laboratory grows in a way that is similar to how it forms in nature. When it is finished, it has many of the same optical, physical, and chemical properties of a natural emerald that came from the earth. Because the process is so similar, the inclusions are similar as well. Often the inclusions are not identical to natural stones' inclusions however, and gemologists are trained to be able to tell the difference.
Depending on the inclusions, a gemologist can often tell you whether a stone is natural or made in a lab, and even the exact process used to manufacture it. Different processes mean that stones can cost more or less, and take differing amounts of time to grow the crystal that will become a gem. It should be noted that different processes can all produce crystals that are very nearly identical to natural crystals in physical, optical, and chemical properties. A synthetic emerald is really an emerald, but it was grown in the lab and not in the earth.
