corundum, inclusions.5, treatments.6, Australia.12, Madagascar.12, Afghanistan, gems

June 1, 2012: I was wearing a wet suit, standing in a stream in freezing temperatures surrounded by giant ferns in a remote wilderness area between Derby and Weldborough, in the north east of Tasmania (Figure 1). My local buddy, Chris Hood, a high-end jewelry shop owner in Hobart and a longtime friend (Figure 10), was doing his best to show me his expertise in gem fossicking. After spending 15 minutes in the cold water, thanks to our wet suits, we were getting surprisingly warm and comfortable. Suddenly we spotted in Chris’ sieve a small bright blue spot: Our very rst Tasmanian sapphire. I was delighted! At this point, you might wonder what a GIA field gemologist and an Aussie jeweler were doing with diving suits on, working a remote narrow stream in that Jurassic Park-like cold and wet forest. Well, that’s a very valid question and its answer is the subject of this article, which hopefully will interest you. In fact, I was trying to complete an unfinished research project that started in 2005 in Madagascar. This was an adventure that could be described as a perfect illustration of “Rule Number 3” in field gemology – “Expect the unexpected” (Pardieu 2012). It started as a gemological quest for samples and knowledge that would take me from the field to the lab, and places as diverse and remote as Ilakaka in southern Madagascar, the mountains of Northern Afghanistan and finally, the lush forests of Tasmania. It also launched the start of a successful and interesting collaboration with Ken Scarratt, the director of the GIA Laboratory in Bangkok. Three years after commencing our collaboration, Ken asked me to join him and become a full-time “field gemologist” for the GIA laboratory – a position that I have long dream of getting and one that I still very much enjoy these days. But let’s start from where the whole adventure started.