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Comment by ginko | Hacker News Reader

>There, mineralogists were able to relate the stone to synthetic BiSbO4 – bismuth antimonate – though with the formula Bi3+Sb5+O4, an arrangement never before found in nature.

How do they know it's not a synthetic stone to begin with?

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“It also has hollow, tube-shaped inclusions called en echelon veins that are caused by shear stress – evidence of its natural formation.”

Thanks. They put that sentence in a weird place, I had missed it too and had the same question.

They assume that as there seem to be no production for this kind of material happening within the sphere of man made industry, anything found must be natural.

No, that’s not correct: there are tubular inclusions in the gem that are a sign of shear stress, which indicates toward natural formation.

Is anyone producing it artificialy? It's a strange combination of oxides. You probably have to mix them, heat them a lot and use a lot of pressure, just to get pitty tiny cristals if you are lucky. In Wikipedia, I don't see any industrial application that can pay for tweaking the procces for years to get nice gems.

I am from Myanmar and I am sure we didn't have technology to do that. We only have like 3 hrs a day of power and 24/7 full on war festival in WJ40k style factions waging war against the Chaos lord Min Aung Hlaing. We don't have infrastructure or technology, our technology now falling back to WW1 era

Unless it's the byproduct of some other valuable process, why would anyone go to the expense and trouble of figuring out how to make it?

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