This Database of Gemstone Inclusions Is Now Open to All

Tucson, Ariz.—Bangkok-based laboratory Lotus Gemology just made its inclusion photography archives available for everyone in the industry to see and use.

Hyperion, a searchable database, features more than 900 photomicrographs—photos of gemstone inclusions taken through a microscope—shot primarily by Lotus using a trinocular microscope, which has a third eyetube to connect a microscope camera.

The database is largely the result of the work of Billie Hughes, who opened Lotus Gemology in 2014 with her parents, Richard Hughes and Wimon Manorotkul.

Whereas her parents had decades of gemological experience, Billie Hughes had just received her gemology diploma from the Gemmological Association of Great Britain (Gem-A) and didn’t have a lot of practical testing experience at the time they opened their lab, she told National Jeweler in Tucson during the AGTA show.

“I found that a lot of what we learned in class was based on identifying gems, which is really important, but most of our customers already know what they have. Ninety-plus percent know if it’s a ruby or not a ruby. They’re looking for treatment, for origin, for color. They’re basically looking for all the things they need to sell it to somebody.”

Because she was seeing so much material and learning as she went, Hughes started taking photos of inclusions, hoping it would help her remember what came in front of her.

“I just thought, ‘Oh, I’ll take pictures of everything. It’s like taking notes.’”

She photographed inclusions she thought were interesting and saved them in the Adobe Bridge computer program, along with a brief description. After a few months, Hughes was able to search through them for reference.

She said her parents saw the inclusion database she was building and thought it should be made available to the industry since so many could benefit from what she had catalogued.

So, Lotus put the photomicrographs into the database it had already had set up to test stones and made it accessible online.

Now, Hyperion—named for the Greek god of light—is available as a free reference for anyone.

It currently is comprised predominantly of ruby, sapphire and spinel photos, Hughes said, because that’s what they’ve been testing for the past five years. But this year, Lotus will start testing other colored gemstones, so the database likely will expand.

Each picture is accompanied by a brief description of what’s pictured and characteristics of the photographed stone, such as enhancements and origin.

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