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The tyrannosaur of the minerals, this gold nugget in quartz weighs more than 70 ounces (2 kilograms).

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World'sRarestGemstones

View Caption +#1: Black Opal

All gemstones are rare; some are just harder to find than others. In fact, there is no consensus on what is the rarest mineral or the rarest gemstone because there is no consensus on the definition of "rarity," according to the Gemological Institute of America. However, many of the stones in this series come from only one or two localities in the entire world, so in that sense, they are scarce. Opal is Australia’s national gemstone, and black opal is the rarest and most valuable of its kind, at times selling at prices that rival the best diamonds. The stone must have a rich, black background, but base colors come in all shades of gray, which is why opinions vary on what is a "true" black opal. Found in the Lightning Ridge area in northwestern New South Wales, black opals are natural, solid stones that absorb scattered white light, giving it brilliant spectral colors.

Information from Gemological Institute of Ame

View Caption +#2: Musgravite

The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) calls musgravite "a rarity among the rare... a particular gem on our research examination 'want list.'" A very close relative of another hard-to-find gemstone, taaffeite (and often misidentified as such), musgravite was first discovered in 1967 in the Musgrave Range of South Australia. Facet grade -- the baseline measurement of how clean cut a sellable stone must be -- for musgravite was not reported until 1993. As of 2005, there were only eight musgravite specimens in the world.

Information from Gemological Institute of Ame

View Caption +#3: Painite

Discovered in 1951 in Mogok, Burma, painite was once considered the rarest mineral on Earth. For decades, only two crystals were known to exist. It didn't obtain official gemstone status until 1957 when the British Museum conducted X-ray analysis on a sample. In 1979, a third crystal was recovered by the GIA. Today, more than a thousand crystals and crystal fragments have been found. However, only a small percentage of the rough are suitable for sale. Painite is made up of aluminium, calcium, boron, zirconium and oxygen. It gets its orange-red to brownish-red color from trace amounts of iron.

Information from Gemological Institute of Ame

View Caption +#4: Jeremejevite

Jeremejevite is an extremely rare, aluminium borate mineral. It was discovered in the late 19th century and named after Pavel V. Jeremejev, a Russian mineralogist and engineer. Until recently, the only two known localities for jeremejevite were Mt. Soktuj in the Transbaikal region of Russia and Cape Cross, Swakopmund, Namibia. Not much is known about jeremejevite. The color is typically aquamarine, but other records show the mineral can also be dark blue, pale yellow-brown or colorless.

Information from Gemological Institute of Ame

View Caption +#5: Red Diamonds

Red diamonds, just like any other diamonds, are made of compressed carbon. However, the brilliant red color in these diamonds is formed from a structural defect in the crystal lattice structure, which is why they are the rarest of the colored diamond collection. Only a handful have ever received the grade of "Fancy Red," meaning that they are pure red with no modifying color. Most are sold at market for millions of dollars. The Argyle mine in Australia is the primary producer of pink and sometimes red diamonds.

Information from Gemological Institute of Ame

View Caption +#6: Tanzanite

This transparent, blue gem first turned up in 1962 and has been found scattered throughout northern Tanzania in Africa. Ranging in color from light blue to pure blue to dark violet-blue, the deepest hues are valued most. Made popular by jewerly giant Tiffany & Co. in 1968, Tanzanite has seen wild price fluctuations over the years. Tanzania's violent political, social and economic conditions have made it difficult at times to mine the mineral. However, the nation remains the gem's only known source.

Information from Gemological Institute of Ame

View Caption +#7: Red Beryl

Although "red emerald” is its snazzy marketing name, and it was originally called "bixbite," this mineral goes by the name "red beryl" today. The brilliant red-purple color is not a trick of the light. The stone's actual chemistry is distinctive and separate from other beryls. It is found along fractures in topaz rhyolites. The gem crystallizes when rhyolite-derived gases, vapors from heated groundwater, and preexisting minerals and volcanic glass in the rhyolite react all at once. There is only one known commercial production of gem-quality red beryl in the world: the Ruby Violet (or Red Beryl) mine in the Wah Wah Mountains of Beaver County, Utah.

Information from Gemological Institute of Ame

View Caption +#8: Poudretteite

Still one of the rarest gems known today, this pinkish mineral was named after the Poudrette family, owners and operators of a quarry near Mont Saint-Hilaire, Quebec, Canada, where poudretteite was first found. It was discovered as a few tiny crystals during the mid-1960s, but wasn't recognized as a new mineral until 1986. The first documented gem-quality specimen of poudretteite wasn't discovered until 2000, when it was found in Mogok, Burma. This remarkable, flawless 9.41 carat poudretteite gem from Burma is truly one-of-a-kind. It is considered to be one of the largest -- if not the largest -- faceted poudretteite in existence.

Information from Smithsonian's National Museu

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Human: The Skinny On Panning for Gold

The hills have gold

Quartz-linked gold has sourced some famous deposits, such as the placer gold that sparked the 19th-century California and Klondike gold rushes. Both deposits had eroded from quartz veins upstream. Placer gold consists of particles, flakes and nuggets mixed in with sand and gravel in stream and river beds. Prospectors traced the gravels back to their sources, where hard-rock mining continues today.

But earthquakes aren't the only cataclysmic source of gold. Volcanoes and their underground plumbing are just as prolific, if not more so, at producing the precious metal. While Weatherley and Henley suggest that a similar process could take place under volcanoes, Wilkinson, who studies volcano-linked gold, said that's not the case.

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"Beneath volcanoes, most of the gold is not precipitated in faults that are active during earthquakes," Wilkinson said. "It's a very different mechanism."

Understanding how gold forms helps companies prospect for new mines. "This new knowledge on gold-deposit formation mechanisms may assist future gold exploration efforts," Weatherley said.

In their quest for gold, humans have pulled more than 188,000 tons (171,000 metric tons) of the metal from the ground, exhausting easily accessed sources, according to the World Gold Council, an industry group.

More from LiveScience:

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Image Gallery: This Millennium's Destructive Earthquakes
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This article originally appeared on LiveScience. Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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