About Zircons Zircon’s fire, brilliance, and beauty can rival any gem. The affordability of its vibrant greens, sky blues, and pleasing earth tones contributes to its growing popularity today. Once a diamond alternative today we know that natural zircons are in fact the most ancient materials on Earth, holding within their brilliant depths a time capsule of our planet’s birth. A tiny fragment of zircon from western Australia is the oldest object on earth: 4.404 billion years old. Earth itself formed less than 150 million years earlier. An even older example is from large meteorite in Chile. The oldest thing scientists have ever examined, that zircon formed at least 4.6 billion years ago in the swirling disk of dust and rocks that became the planets. Today, natural zircon is often overlooked because cubic zirconia, the laboratory-grown diamond imitation, is so much more common. As a result, many people don’t even realize that there is a beautiful natural gemstone zircon. Lore In the Middle Ages zircon was said to aid sleep, bring prosperity, and promote honor and wisdom in its owner. The name probably comes from the Persian word zargun, which means “gold colored.”
