Beryllium in Pink and Yellow Sapphires Andy Shen, Shane McClure, and Ken Scarratt GIA Laboratory, Carlsbad and Bangkok (April 3, 2009) Pure corundum consists only of aluminum oxide (Al 2 O 3 ), but in nature this mineral always contains minor to trace amounts of other elements as impurities. For example, natural untreated blue sapphires may contain roughly a few hundred to tens of thousands ppm of iron and titanium, depending on the type of deposit in which they formed. Until recently, however, beryllium (Be) had not been documented in untreated corundum. Therefore, it was assumed that the presence of any Be in corundum was indicative of beryllium treatment. In 2006, we did a comprehensive analysis of 500 sapphires (Shen et al., 2007) and found 17 blue sapphires with Be concentrations that were highly variable from one area of the stone to the next. This was not consistent with the results obtained on known beryllium-treated stones. One of these anomalies was a 2.6 ct round brilliant-cut blue sapphire that showed clear evidence of heat treatment. Laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) analyses of a few spots on the girdle showed up to 13.3 ppmw (parts per million by weight is used throughout this article) Be associated with an angular milky cloud within the stone, with essentially no Be found elsewhere. The cloud also showed consistently elevated concentrations of niobium (Nb) and tantalum (Ta), which had never been seen in any Be-diffused samples. We concluded that the source of the Be must be the cloud and that the uneven distribution of Be and its association with Nb and Ta could be used to identify naturally occurring Be. Since then, we have detected beryllium in other colors of sapphires, some of which we can identify as occurring naturally—either by their association with clouds or because of their Be-Nb-Ta association. In this contribution, we describe a pink sapphire with natural Be and a yellow sapphire with an indeterminate Be source. For the heated purplish pink sapphire (6.3 ct) in figure 1, we recorded the following gemological observations: discoid fractures with lacy rims, pink color zones showing hexagonal growth, a blue zone surrounded by clouds near the culet in which the cloud appeared to be yellowish, and a few faint clouds on or near the girdle. LA-ICP-MS analysis showed a Be range from 0 ppmw (below detection limit) to 5.6 ppmw around the whole girdle. The highest Be concentrations were associated with the cloud. When the chemical data was plotted, clear Be-Nb-Ta-Ti correlations were observed (figure 2). This was consistent with Be of natural origin.