Diaspore Diaspore was first discovered in 1801 in Russia. The first discoveries where of a small amount of included material with more deposits found of facet grade material. The name Diaspore comes for the Greek word “diaspora” meaning to scatter. It was called this because of the way the gemstone seemed to scatter the light and sparkle.

Diaspore has a unique color changing ability. It is one fo the few color change gemstones in the world along with Sapphires, garnets and Alexandrite. Diaspore is generally a yellowish green color in fluorescent light and it changes to a reddish pink color in incandescent light. The gem can look like both of these colors at the same time depending what type of light is hitting it. Diaspore is a very durable gemstone with a hardness of 6.5 – 7 on the MOHS scale. This puts it in the same ball park as Tanzanite or Perdiot. Since Diaspore has perfect cleavage in one direction it can be difficult to cut because parts of the stone will cleave off.

Since 1801 when it was first discovered there have been numerous deposits found. It can now be found in the USA (Arizona and Pennsylvania), New Zealand, Brazil, Argentina, Russia, the UK and China. You will notice that I have left Turkey off this list. The Diaspore that comes from Turkey is special. Let’s take a look.