Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Gemology!
I attended the Gemology Dinner and Dialogue last week. I really enjoyed it! It was very informative and I learned a lot. The speaker was a gemology professor here at OSU. She talked about colored stones and diamonds and where they are generally from. We also discussed the political happenings going on in those countries and their effects on the cutting and distributions of the stones. Several countries have juntas in control and have very harsh conditions that are forced upon the workers. Yet there are also countries like Botswana, that are doing business the correct way and have most of their economy based off of their diamond industry. Overall, it was a really great experience! It was also really cool that we got to see actually precious stones!
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I also attended the Gemology Dinner and Dialogue. It was very educational. I've always had an interest in gems, partly because my mother's a jeweler. I've always heard of the term "blood diamond" (the exchange of diamonds for weapons), but I've never bothered to ask what it meant till this event. It was also interesting to learn about Madagascar, which is so rich in wildlife and rainforests, to have large deposits of gemstones. Thus, "gem miners' have been digging up gemstones, dangerously disrupting the environment without any concern. This reminded me of the new sci-fi Avatar. This event was overall fascinating and has persuaded me to take Earth Sci 108- Gems and Precious Stones next quarter.
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