Did you know that there over 200 varieties of beautiful natural gemstones in the world, apart from the precious gems like Ruby, Diamonds, Emerald and Sapphire? These numerous beautiful and semi-precious gem stones are incredibly rare, with a few of them having a value that is higher than some of the precious gems. Here is a list of some of the most beautiful and rarest stones from around the world.

TANZANITE

A Rare Stone Found only in Tanzania, this beautiful blue stone is a variety made from the mineral zoisite exclusively found near the foot of the famous mountain Mount Kilimanjaro. The stone was originally discovered in very small amounts, until 1960 when its commercial value was realized. The stone has been immensely popular since then and used widely in making jewelleries.

BLACK OPAL

The opal stones are usually creamy or white in color and include several small rainbow colored inclusions in it that reflect light when the stone is moved. Compared to these cream and white colored opals, the black opal is very rare and found only in the mines of New South Wales, Australia, precisely the Lightening Ridge. The darker stones are more valuable as they rare and reflect the inclusions better. The Aurora Australis is one of the most valuable black opals to be ever discovered and holds a value of $763,000 U.S

LARIMAR

Found only in the beautiful Dominican Republic, this light blue variety of stone is made from the mineral pectolite a rare mineral found only in a small area of the Dominican Republic. Small pieces of the stone kept washing up across the seashore for years. However, it was only sometime in the 1970s that the ground was dug up to mine the rare stone

PARAIBA TOURMALINE

Tourmalines are one of the most common stones found in different shades across Brazil. However, the Paraiba tourmalines are unique for their bright turquoise color which is very rare. The stone was discovered by Heitor Dimas Barbosa in 1987 who believed that the hills of Paraiba were covering some of the world’s most beautiful treasures. It is believed, that only 1 Paraiba stone is mined against every 10,000 diamonds. This makes the stone extremely rare.

GRANDIDERITE

Found for the first time on the Madagascar Island, the stone was named after the explorer Alfred Grandidier who had discovered it in 1902. The blue-green stone was extremely rare and found only in a few places across the world, such as Sri Lanka and Madagascar.

ALEXANDRITE

A color shifting rare mineral stone, the Alexandrite was first discovered in 1830 at Russia’s Ural Mountains. The unique color shifting capability of the stone made it rare. The stone looks blue-green under the sunlight and red-purple under the incandescent light. Large amount of this rare stone have been found, the largest cut sample being the 65.08 carats.

BENITOITE

Discovered near the river San Benito, the Benitoite stone is a rare gem that was first found in 1907 by a geologist George Louderback. The stone glows fluorescent under the ultra violet lights making it a unique gem compared to all the other stones.