Gooseberry Garnet

Gooseberry Garnet is a trade name for pale, slightly translucent green grossular garnet, named because its cool, soft green recalls the color of gooseberry fruit. The green typically comes from traces of iron, and sometimes a hint of vanadium or chromium.

Grossular is the calcium-aluminum garnet species; its most famous green variety is the vivid, chromium- and vanadium-colored tsavorite. Gooseberry Garnet is the gentler, lighter-toned cousin, often more translucent than transparent.

It is valued by collectors who enjoy the full range of grossular greens.

Like other grossular, Gooseberry Garnet forms during the metamorphism of calcium-rich rocks, especially impure limestones and marls altered in skarn environments and in metamorphic belts. Heat and chemically active fluids drive the crystallization of garnet in these settings.

Green grossular is found in East Africa (Tanzania, Kenya), Pakistan, Canada, and elsewhere. The pale tone of Gooseberry Garnet reflects lower concentrations of the chromophores that produce intense colors in tsavorite.

Look for a cool, pale to medium green stone, often translucent, with vitreous luster.

• Hardness: 6.5-7.
• Streak: white.
• Optic character: singly refractive.
• Fracture: conchoidal, no cleavage.

Under magnification grossular commonly shows rounded crystal and fluid inclusions. Separate it from peridot (which is doubly refractive and yellowish-green) and from green tourmaline (doubly refractive). Compared with tsavorite, Gooseberry Garnet is paler and often less transparent.

Gooseberry Garnet is faceted or cut into cabochons for rings, pendants, and earrings, and is popular with collectors assembling suites of garnet colors. It offers a gentle green at a far lower price than tsavorite.

It is reasonably durable for jewelry. Green garnets are associated in metaphysical lore with renewal and the heart, though these claims are not scientific.