Gemstone Toughness Addendum

Hello Orchid members. I feel a need to make a correction to my last
posting on gemstone toughness. As I was reading my post the
following day, I realized that I may have given the wrong impression
to others like myself who are in the process of learning gemology.

I stated incorrectly that “gemstones possess two separate durability
components, hardness and toughness.” For the purposes of my post,
that is the two components I was trying to convey. However, in its
entirety, gemstone durability is actually made up of three separate
components: hardness, toughness and stability. Stability is the
resistance to heat, change in temperature, color change and chemical
attack.

Charles Heick