It is an Aluminum Oxide, as it is known in mineralogy circles with a chemical composition of Al₂O₃ and forms the shape of a hexagonal crystal structure.

This is not a mineral you often hear about, but is widely known as the second hardest natural mineral known to man and for the fact that it is sometimes found as beautiful transparent crystals in many different colors. The extreme hardness makes corundum an excellent abrasive, and when that hardness is found in beautiful crystals, you have the perfect material for cutting Gemstones like Ruby and Sapphire.

Corundum is formed by both volcanic processes deep in the earth and the high pressure and temperature, conditions of metamorphic processes. As liquid magma deep within the earth slowly cools the minerals dissolved within cool into crystals. The purest and most translucent forms of corundum are created by recrystallization of minerals during the metamorphosis of rocks that are of igneous origin. It is a process that takes millions of years and only a few places in the world have rock outcrops where these rare crystals are exposed by weathering.

The pure form of the mineral corundum is clear and colorless, but mineral ‘impurities’ that seep into the Aluminum Oxide as the rock cools give it its fabulous colors. The distinctive colors of many gemstones are caused by the presence of transition metals as impurities in an otherwise transparent crystal lattice. This is a called crystal-field or, a ligand-field effect. Corundum comes in many different colors, all of which are highly prized if they are free of intrusions and translucent or transparent. When trace amounts of titanium and iron get into the Al2O3 crystal lattice during its formation a beautiful Blue Sapphire is formed

Hardness of common materials.

One of the most important tests for identifying mineral specimens is the Mohs Hardness Test. This test compares the resistance of a mineral to being scratched by ten reference minerals known as the Mohs Hardness Scale. The test is useful because most specimens of a given mineral are very close to the same hardness. This makes hardness a reliable diagnostic property for most minerals.

Friedrich Mohs, a German mineralogist, developed the scale in 1812. He selected ten minerals of distinctly different hardness that ranged from a very soft mineral (talc) to a very hard mineral (diamond). With the exception of diamond, the minerals are all relatively common and easy or inexpensive to obtain.

Sapphire is found in the Central Queensland Gem-fields around 307km West of Rockhampton, Queensland via the Capricorn Highway and about a 45 minute drive West of Emerald.

Just North of the Anakie turnoff and on the way to Rubyvale is where you will find the welcoming hamlet of Sapphire.

This area encompassing some 640 square kilometres of designated fossicking land, is a main drawcard for those interested in finding a precious stone or two. Many gemstones are found each season, some extremely valuable. Most popular times for fossicking in these fields is late April to September.

The area is rich in ancient river beds due to volcanic eruptions and erosion over many millions of years. These conditions provided the right environment for the crystallised rock formations of Rubies and Sapphires, otherwise known as Corundum.

At the face of the hole you will notice top soil which contains vegetation; the sub-soil that supports the top soil, and then a rubbly or friable band containing iron stones, small pebbles and maybe medium sized basalt rocks. This is known as the wash and is the remnants of an ancient creek or river bed. All of the above rests on a bed of clay. It is in the wash that the sapphire’s are found. Experienced fossickers will readily identify the geology of the area and investigate other potential sapphire bearing wash. Wash can be found from right at the surface or deep underground where tunneling is required.

Extracting the sapphire relies on the principle that sapphire has a greater specific gravity e.g. is heavier for given size than all other stones except diamonds. The most common method is to remove the bulk of the dirt from the wash using a series of sieves and screens, followed by cleaning the stones in water using the sieves and Willoughby, this is commonly known as the wet sieve method.

Once the stones are clean the sieve is flipped upside down onto a hessian bag, or similar on a table positioned in the sunlight. Starting at the centre, examine the washed stone carefully for colour. The most likely colours of sapphire will be blue, green or yellow, the rarer being red and orange. Red and orange coloured stones will more than likely be zircons. Examine the entire contents of each sieve keeping in mind that Star Sapphires, spinel and other gemstones such as zircon may be found depending on location.

Major roadways to the fossicking areas are gravel and mostly kept in reasonable condition, depending upon the time of the year. Access across the designated fossicking fields a generally well worn tracks suitable for conventional cars and normal caravans. Sections of some of the designated fields are quite rugged and require 4WD vehicles. Adjacent to the rugged sections are flat areas suitable for camping if you prefer not to travel on the rougher sections of track.

Gemstone material that has not been extensively cut and polished is referred to generally as Rough. Rough material that has been lightly hammered to knock off brittle, fractured material is said to have been Cobbed.

1.2. “Personal information” is information we hold which is identifiable as being about you.

2. COLLECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

2.1. Ken’s Sapphires will, from time to time, receive and store personal information you enter onto our website, provide to us directly or give to us in other forms.

2.2. You may provide basic information such as your name, phone number, address and email address to enable us to send information, provide updates and process your product or service order. We may collect additional information at other times, including but not limited to, when you provide feedback, when you provide information about your personal or business affairs, change your content or email preference, respond to surveys and/or promotions, provide financial or credit card information, or communicate with our customer support.

2.3. Additionally, we may also collect any other information you provide while interacting with us.

3. HOW WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

3.1. Ken’s Sapphires collects personal information from you in a variety of ways, including when you interact with us electronically or in person, when you access our website and when we provide our services to you. We may receive personal information from third parties. If we do, we will protect it as set out in this Privacy Policy.

4. USE OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

4.1. Ken’s Sapphires may use personal information collected from you to provide you with information, updates and our services. We may also make you aware of new and additional products, services and opportunities available to you. We may use your personal information to improve our products and services and better understand your needs.

4.2. Ken’s Sapphires may contact you by a variety of measures including, but not limited to telephone, email, sms or mail.

5. DISCLOSURE OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

5.1. We may disclose your personal information to any of our employees, officers, insurers, professional advisers, agents, suppliers or subcontractors insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this Policy. Personal information is only supplied to a third party when it is required for the delivery of our services.

5.2. We may from time to time need to disclose personal information to comply with a legal requirement, such as a law, regulation, court order, subpoena, warrant, in the course of a legal proceeding or in response to a law enforcement agency request.

5.3. We may also use your personal information to protect the copyright, trademarks, legal rights, property or safety of Ken’s Sapphires, www.kenssapphires.com.au, its customers or third parties.

5.4. Information that we collect may from time to time be stored, processed in or transferred between parties located in countries outside of Australia.

5.5. If there is a change of control in our business or a sale or transfer of business assets, we reserve the right to transfer to the extent permissible at law our user databases, together with any personal information and non-personal information contained in those databases. This information may be disclosed to a potential purchaser under an agreement to maintain confidentiality. We would seek to only disclose information in good faith and where required by any of the above circumstances.

5.6. By providing us with personal information, you consent to the terms of this Privacy Policy and the types of disclosure covered by this Policy. Where we disclose your personal
information to third parties, we will request that the third party follow this Policy regarding handling your personal information.

6. SECURITY OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

6.1. Ken’s Sapphires is committed to ensuring that the information you provide to us is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure information and protect it from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.

6.2. The transmission and exchange of information is carried out at your own risk. We cannot guarantee the security of any information that you transmit to us, or receive from us. Although we take measures to safeguard against unauthorised disclosures of information, we cannot assure you that personal information that we collect will not be disclosed in a manner that is inconsistent with this Privacy Policy.

7. ACCESS TO YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

7.1. You may request details of personal information that we hold about you in accordance with the provisions of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). A small administrative fee may be payable for the provision of information. If you would like a copy of the information which we hold about you or believe that any information we hold on you is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, please email us at info@kenssapphires.com.au.

7.2. We reserve the right to refuse to provide you with information that we hold about you, in certain circumstances set out in the Privacy Act.

8. COMPLAINTS ABOUT PRIVACY

8.1. If you have any complaints about our privacy practices, please feel free to email us at info@kenssapphires.com.au. We take complaints very seriously and will respond shortly after receiving written notice of your complaint.

9. CHANGES TO PRIVACY POLICY

9.1. Please be aware that we may change this Privacy Policy in the future. We may modify this Policy at any time, in our sole discretion and all modifications will be effective immediately upon our posting of the modifications on our website or notice board. Please check back from time to time to review our Privacy Policy.

10. WEBSITE

10.1. When you visit our website

When you come to our website (www.kenssapphires.com.au) we may collect certain information such as browser type, operating system, website visited immediately before coming to our site, etc. This information is used in an aggregated manner to analyse how people use our site, such that we can improve our service.

10.2. Cookies

We may from time to time use cookies on our website. Cookies are very small files which a website uses to identify you when you come back to the site and to store details about your use of the site. Cookies are not malicious programs that access or damage your computer. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies but you can choose to reject cookies by changing your browser settings. However, this may prevent you from taking full advantage of our website.

10.3. Our website may from time to time use cookies to analyses website traffic and help us provide a better website visitor experience. In addition, cookies may be used to serve relevant ads to website visitors through third party services such as Google Adwords. These ads may appear on this website or other websites you visit.

10.4. Third party sites

Our site may from time to time have links to other websites not owned or controlled by us. These links are meant for your convenience only. Links to third party websites do not constitute sponsorship or endorsement or approval of these websites. Please be aware that Ken’s Sapphires is not responsible for the privacy practices of other such websites. We encourage our users to be aware, when they leave our website, to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personal identifiable information.