Garnet "flats" ground pieces collection box with 1.6-1.9 kilos of natural garnet from India.

The garnet group includes minerals with a cubic crystal system and crystals in the form of rhombohedral dodecahedrons and trapezohedrons. They are nesosilicates with the general chemical formula A3B2(SiO4)3. Garnets may contain chemical elements such as calcium, magnesium, aluminum, iron(II), iron(III), chromium, manganese and titanium. They show no splitting and have a hardness of 6.5 to 7.5. Garnets can range from transparent to opaque. The term "garnet" comes from the Latin 'granatus', referring to 'malum granatum' (pomegranate), a plant with red seeds that resemble the commonly found garnet crystals. Garnets, contrary to popular belief and what the name suggests, are not always red. They can be purple, red, orange, yellow, green, brown, black or colorless. In 1998, a blue-pink garnet was first discovered in Bekily, Madagascar, a very rare variant. The six most common varieties are pyrope, almandine, spessartite, grossular, uvarovite, and andradite, which occur in two solid solution series: 1. The pyralspite group: pyrope-almandine-spessartite 2. The ugrandite group: uvarovite-grossular-andradite. Garnets are very abundant in the Earth's crust and mantle, making them important to the chemical understanding of Earth. Garnet is also one of the "nine gems" in the Thai Order of the Nine Gems.