what is the difference between gems and ores?
92292
Gems - diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires - just need to be cleaned and polished. They already exist in a usable form (after you cut and polish them.) You just need to wash the dirt away. \n\nOres are big piles of dirt that have bits of metal (iron, lead, silver, gold) in them. You have to refine the metal out and melt it into bigger pieces. It is a little like evaporating salt water to get salt.
202562
A mineralogist simply stated is someone who studies minerals.\n\nMinerals can include anything from diamonds & other gems (precious & semi-precious) to rock forming minerals such as quartz & feldspar.
552288
rocks are made up of minerals
281669
the Mohs scale is a scale of hardness for gem material only and it goes by what will scratch what, like diamond at 10, corundum(sapphire and ruby) at a 9 and so on down the scale.  there are not equal increments between the numerical ratings either and scale does not apply to metals...  titanium will scratch very easily and really cannot be refinished while tungsten is extremely scratch resistant.  (My girlfriend is a jeweler)
94622
I think size matters in this case; the smaller the better.  You can store your jewellery in a safety deposit box when you travel, but it's hard to keep your art pieces secure.  Also, gems just keep appreciating in value, whereas art is harder to predict.  Go for the sure thing: jewellery.
1006279
The higher the number of karets on gold referes to how soft the gold is.  The higher the number the better quality it is, also the less additives like silver or nickel it has in it.  Zircon diamond refers to man made diamonds versus a real nature made diamond.
993033
check this:\nhttp://www.gemstone.org/gem-by-gem/gem-by-gem.html
568669
The yield of a mine related to the percentage of the ore.  It might be such a low concentration that it isn't worth it to mine it.  In my state, AZ, copper mines have a fixed price where if copper falls below that price, the miners already know they can't make money, so they hold off until the price rises to make it worthwhile.  Most mines do this.
1167093
Fool's gold has a minute value as a iron ore and possibly for the sulfur. Other than that the pyrite (fool's gold) isn't worth a thing in individual amounts.
264929
As a recreational prospector, I prefer gold to silver. When you find gold, you usually don't have to do any processing, you have gold. Silver, on the other hand is usually locked up in some kind of ore and needs further processing, you just don't find silver nuggets.
244879
Minerals are made up of combinations of elements & rocks are made up of combinations of minerals.\n\nTechnically a rock & a mineral are not the same thing.\n\nSince minerals make up rocks I guess they have that same thing in common.
849041
A rock is a naturally occurring aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids. Rocks are classified by mineral and chemical composition, by the texture of the constituent particles and by the processes that formed them. These indicators separate rocks into igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic. They may also be classified according to grain size, in the case of conglomerates and breccias or in the case of individual stones.\n\nMinerals are natural compounds formed through geological processes. The term "mineral" encompasses not only the material's chemical composition, but also the mineral's structure. Minerals range in composition from pure elements and simple salts to very complex silicates with thousands of known forms (organic compounds are excluded). The study of minerals is called mineralogy.
1082494
White gold is an alloy of gold that contains another metal, like platinum, causing it to look more like silver.  While gold always contains less actual gold than pure gold, but may be more valuable on an ounce basis if the alloy metal is more valuable than gold.  One common use of white gold is to make the metal much harder than 24 carat gold so that it is more resistant to dents and other damage.
787407
Yep, definitely cleavage (lol and you can describe how many directions the cleavage is in and whether it's 'perfect cleavage'... a great opportunity for geokes..)\n\nHardness is the resistance of the surface of the mineral to scratching, it's dependent on the crystal structure of the mineral, and usually expressed on 'Moh's Hardness Scale' - as a number from one to ten, one being lowest (talc, where talcum powder comes from, has a hardness of 1; diamond has a hardness of 10)\n\nThe streak is the colour of the mineral when powdered (it is useful in identifying minerals as it is a more constant property than colour - the slightest difference in trace element chemistry might have a huge effect on colour, hence all the diff varieties of quartz...). Streak is usually found by scratching the mineral along an unglazed piece of porcelain.\n\nFracture is the way a mineral breaks when it doesn't break along a plane (flat surface).
480516
Silver is an element.  It is found in rocks that are called ore.  It usually occurs as a sulfide mineral, such as AgS2, or in small amounts in a sulfide mineral based on another metal, such as PbS2.\n\nGold is Au.  Silver is Ag.
823162
the definition of a gem is a mineral or stone that is of great value.  diamonds are very valuable, so they are indeed a gem.
459189
Rocks are rocks, and stones are included here. Stones we tend to think of as something that we desire, whether is be for jewelry or for putting along your flowerbed while rocks are sort of all encompassing. Really though, there is no difference, stones ARE rocks.