What is diopside

Many jewelry lovers associate the name of the mineral diopside with green of different shades and intensity; chromium diopside, a chromium-containing variety of this mineral, and even with stellated, almost black stones. But the list of diopside varieties is not limited to this. The Violan variety, which is not widely used in the form of a cut, contains an admixture of manganese, and has a blue or purple color. This variety is quite widespread in the form of almost monomineral fine-crystalline metasomatic rocks used for making cabochons. In addition to manganese, the color of the violans is also affected by the jadeite formula component (minal). In Russia, violet-colored cutting stones are sometimes mined in the Middle Urals, while blue and blue-violet cabochon-quality stones mainly come from the Baikal region. Sometimes you can find ordinary yellowish-green ("bottle" color) diopside in the form of faceted inserts, but such faceted stones, although much cheaper than green chrome diopside or purple mangan diopside, are also very rare. Jade "karkaro" is popular abroad - a dense green diopside rock that resembles jadeite and is used as an ornamental or, in the best examples, as a gemstone. In addition, in the south of Eastern Siberia, pyroxene-amphibole metasomatic rocks are known, externally similar to nephrite, characterized by a micro-grained structure, light gray or white in color with porphyry-like segregations of individual larger grains or even granular aggregates of blue diopside.