Wyoming Ruby
Can you tell us a little about the source of this material?
Ruby is found in various locations around the world but there is only one place in the Americas where it is produced: Wyoming. The mine is known as the Rodeo Queen Mine, the only ruby deposit location in the western hemisphere and located in the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains. These hills present a jagged terrain, a landscape covered in grass and broken Ponderosa Pine forests. While the mine is surrounded by giant rock monoliths protruding from the earth (at a staggering 75-degree angle no less!), the mining site itself lies on a flat bench formation where small scale mechanical mining is done. If you sit at the mine and gaze to the east, you will see the sunrise over the vast parries of Nebraska and South Dakota. We even had the privilege of naming this mine and gave the name ‘Rodeo Queen’ because of its location just northwest of Cheyenne, Wyoming where one of America’s most famous rodeos takes place every year.
The Rodeo Queen Mine produces very red gems, nearly opaque in color. These rubies manifest the energy of the rugged terrain surrounding the mine and display the earthy imperfections that make them so unique. While these do not fall into what would be considered top gem quality, this material still cuts a beautiful American-sourced gemstone.
The ruby found in this mine is still embedded in a host rock, which is a soft mica shist. When you look at the mica walls and boulders, you can see veins of small ruby crystals running through them. The rubies are usually round in shape and while the mica boulders that house them are soft, the crystals themselves are tough – almost as if they feed off the host rock to form. A small excavator is used to pull out basketball size chunks of black mica, then those boulders are crushed down to 1-2 inch sized pieces. These pieces are then put into a tumbler that breaks down the mica, resulting in a thick sparkly mica sludge, with ruby crystals settling at the bottom. It is these ruby crystals that we cut into the finished gems.
All the mining is done by two or three people with a mechanical excavator to unearth the mica that produces the ruby crystals. After the ore is removed, the underbrush and topsoil are returned. The area is contoured to fit back with the landscape. It is interesting to watch because the excavator operator is digging ahead and filling in behind as it mines along.
What kinds of sizes, shapes and cutting styles can be found?
We cut our Wyoming ruby in a variety of shapes, but the majority of our production includes faceted rounds with larger stones cut in emerald cuts, ovals, or rounds. The gems tend to be opaque but still display that rich ruby red color. The sizes you will find generally start around 2mm rounds and will increase in size from there. It is rare to find any of these rubies over a carat and exceedingly rare to find any over two carats.
The rough from the rodeo queen mine tends to be small, so we cut primarily rounds from 2-4mm in size. We do get larger stones in the 5-6.5mm size occasionally. In addition to round rubies, we do cut a limited quantity of larger emerald cut stones. They run from 90pts to about 2 carats. Anything above a one carat stone is extremely rare from this deposit.
The crystals tend to be round in shape and very red in color, but they are heavily included. This means to cut solid stones, we must eliminate open fractures and whitish inclusions. The resulting gems tend to be a fine deep red, but mostly opaque. To produce those beautiful deep red gems, it takes special care and expert lapidaries. This is one of the reasons 100% of the Rodeo Queen ruby is cut directly by us.
Is this material typically enhanced in any way?
The gems from the Rodeo Queen Mine are not enhanced in any way. Gems such as these are commonly found with low temperature glass filling, which creates an appearance of a cleaner gem quality material, but our rubies are never filled and never heated. At all. They are cut to reflect the true nature of the ruby itself.
The Rodeo Queen Mine ruby is never treated in any way. Because we mine it ourselves, we can absolutely guarantee you this. A large percentage of ruby today is lead glass filled. If we were to lead glass heat and fill these stones, we would improve the clarity a lot but we consider this practice fraud. The untreated gems we cut truly represent the look of these rare American gems.
It is quite amazing to extract basketball chunks of the mica ore and see the bands of red ruby crystals exposed on the near black ground. This type of ruby (from a mineral standpoint) is found in other locations around the world, but the particularly unique aspect of this ruby is that it comes from right here in America.
Are there any unique characteristics you can share about this material?
Something particularly interesting to note is that the crystals actually seem to form in a greenish-colored mica that is encased within the black mica. You also would never know it unless you tried, but this material actually fluoresces a chalky-red color under long wave UV light. The wonders of the things that come from the earth never cease to amaze us!
What are the gem specs of this material? How do we know if it is authentic?
The material we source at Columbia Gem House is backed with our Gem Trust guarantee. This means you know it’s an authentic gemstone and that we will share all available information with you. You can find additional gem specifications below:
How do I care for my gemstone?
Ruby is an extremely hard material and second only to diamonds. This means it can handle nearly all conditions, which makes it great to design with and wear. Just as with all gemstones though, you should treat it with care and do your best not to strike it directly.
Because these rubies are not treated, you can be completely confident in having your local jeweler clean them in ultrasonics or steam cleaners. You can also use warm water, detergent, and a soft brush to clean at home.
