Gemstones you can go and see

Dig and sieve wash on public land set aside for recreational fossicking around Sapphire, Rubyvale, Willows, Glenalva, Graves Hill and Tomahawk Creek, looking for sapphire and zircon.

Work through two-gallon buckets of ore at a flume line fed by Caler Creek, screening the gravel for ruby, sapphire and garnet.

Search a 37-acre ploughed field on the eroded surface of a volcanic crater for diamonds and other minerals, then take finds to the Diamond Discovery Centre for free identification.

Choose between sluicing a bucket at the sluiceway, prospecting in the creek or digging on the mine site, washing and screening material in search of emerald and the other gem species found there.

Buy a bucket of sapphire gravel and wash it at an outdoor trough with staff on hand, who then weigh and bag any rough sapphires you separate out.

Break open dolostone in the open surface mines with a hammer to free doubly terminated quartz crystals, or screen a purchased bag at the sluice station.

Dig for quartz crystals at the Crystal Forest Mine, the Phantom Mine or the tailings pile, with a gemstone sluice and geode cracking also offered on site.

Go 18 metres underground into the original workings of a worked-out black opal mine with a local opal miner, and separately view around 900 sculptures carved into the sandstone walls across 26 chambers.

Walk the surface operations of the working Cullinan diamond mine on a guided tour of one and a half to two hours, taking in the shaft, the open pit and a display of rough diamonds and replicas.

Take a guided underground tour of the only known Roman gold mine in the UK, either the one-hour Victorian Tour into the Mitchell Mine or the 30-minute level-access Level Tour, and pan for gold in the mine yard.

Follow a guided route through lit tunnels past agate, rock crystal, amethyst, smoky quartz and calcite in place, with the option of a separate outdoor gem camp and digging field where visitors search stocked ground for stones.

Take a 40-minute guided walk through an underground sapphire mine, including a tunnel section dug in 1906, then buy a bucket of wash from the working mine and sieve it above ground.

Follow a self-guided route through an original hand-dug opal mine and its museum, and try the noodling pits where visitors sort through discarded rubble for opal the miners missed.

Nothing: there is no visitor operation at Sar-e-Sang and the mines are not open to the public.

Walk underground through a former zinc mine with mining equipment and a drilling and blasting demonstration, ending at the fluorescent Rainbow Tunnel, and collect minerals outside on the dumps.

Join a guided tour from the visitor centre covering the history of the diamond rush and its tools and fortunes, then look out over the excavated open pit from the viewing platform.

Descend into original mine workings dating from the 1920s with a local guide, and walk a free underground museum covering opal formation, mining history and Aboriginal cultural heritage with a documentary shown in an underground cinema.

Take gemmology training in Bangkok's gem district, from the four-month Accredited Gemologist Diploma to a two-day course in preliminary quality opinion assessment, with online courses also offered.

Study gemmology in person at Gem-A's Ely Place premises or online, from the GemINTRO introductory course through the Gemmology Foundation and Diploma to a five-day Diamond Grading short course, plus in-person and online workshops.

Enrol on GIT's on-site or online training courses, or attend one of the seminars and workshops it runs alongside its gem testing laboratory and gemmological instrument services.

Spend a week in hands-on classes in cabochon cutting, faceting, silversmithing, wire wrapping, enamelling and related crafts, taught in workshops on a residential campus.

Walk two galleries holding more than 5,000 specimens from 98 countries, arranged around how minerals form, including a 380 kg stibnite, a 1,400 kg labradorite block, a 1.5 metre beryl crystal and a garnet-studded slab weighing 6,577 kg.

See a large gem and mineral collection whose named pieces include the 422.66 carat blue sapphire known as the Siren of Serendip, a 2,000 lb amethyst geode and a 3,000 carat topaz crystal.

Work through three floors and 800 square metres holding over 10,000 exhibits that follow a stone from rough through historic and current cutting and engraving techniques to a finished piece.

Watch guides work agate on large sandstone grinding wheels driven by a waterwheel, using the cutting methods of earlier centuries, alongside a multimedia show and a mineral room.

See the National Gem Collection, including the Hope Diamond, the Carmen Lucia ruby, the Mackay emerald and diamond necklace and the Whitney Flame Topaz, alongside a walk-through mine section and meteorites visitors can touch.

Walk four halls of minerals, gemstones and rocks, including the Edelsteinstrauss gemstone bouquet, which the museum also presents as a 3D model in Hall 4.

Take a guided tour covering how tanzanite formed, how it is mined at Merelani and how it is cut, polished and graded, including a replica mine shaft and a short film.

Walk a single gallery of named specimens including the Aurora Pyramid of Hope, a set of 296 coloured diamonds, the Devonshire Emerald, the crystallised gold specimen known as the Dragon and the Latrobe gold nugget.