Ensuring Accurate Results at GIA’s Laboratory
GIA’s next Gemstone Gathering is 25 March in Bangkok
BANGKOK – 20 March 2015 – From the time a gemstone is submitted to GIA until it’s returned, the laboratory applies a series of tests to ensure accurate conclusions when it comes to analysis or grading results and detecting any treatments or synthetics. Nicholas Sturman, GIA’s senior manager of pearl identification, will discuss the various ways GIA laboratory staff prepare equipment and use master stone sets to obtain the results shown on reports during GIA’s (Gemological Institute of America) next Gemstone Gathering in Bangkok on 25 March.Sturman’s presentation will look at references, master stone sets and standards in gemmology. He will also cover additional information included on reports such as colour calls, fluorescence, and in the case of pearls, lustre, surface and matching, which all need to be agreed upon by gemmologists after comparison against master sets of various types.
Sturman has more than 25 years of experience in the detailed examination of pearls. He specialises in the separation of natural pearls from all types of cultured pearls at GIA’s laboratory in Bangkok. Sturman obtained his Fellowship (FGA) and Diamond Membership (DGA) from The Gemmological Association of Great Britain and spent more than 16 years studying pearls in the Kingdom of Bahrain as the gemmological advisor to the Bahrain Government’s Gem and Pearl Testing Laboratory. He writes for various gemological publications and has given presentations in the Middle East and several other countries, including the U.K., Switzerland and Thailand.
GIA’s Gemstone Gathering, a free event, begins at 6 p.m. on 25 March in the “Crowne Room 1-3” on the 21st floor of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Lumpini Park in Bangkok.
