DID YOU KNOW...Turquoise  is ancient, yet again and again it finds itself back in fashion. Its  shining sky blue is one of the most popular trend colors in the world  of jewelery and fashion.

In many cultures of the Old and New  Worlds, this gemstone has been esteemed for thousands of years. The  oldest evidence for this claim was found in Egypt, where grave  furnishings with turquoise inlay were discovered, dating from  approximately 3000 B.C.  Turquoise is a copper aluminum phosphate with a  hardness of 6, i.e. considerably softer than quartz. In Nature, it  occurs in the whole range of hues from sky blue to grey-green, and it is  mostly found in places where there is a high concentration of copper in  the soil. 

The  blue colour is created by copper, the green by bivalent iron and a  certain amount of chrome. Often, the material has veins running through it, which are brown, light grey or black depending on  where it was found. These lively, more or less regular patterns are  known as 'turquoise matrix'. The crystals are microscopically small and  can hardly ever be recognized with the naked eye. As a rule, turquoise  occurs as a filling in veins or crevices, or in the form of nuggets. The most well known deposits are in the USA, Mexico, Israel, Afghanistan and China. 

I love turquoise with a lot of matrix with blue & green hues! Beautiful!!