Adorable high quality costume jewelry. 18k plated with Zircon gemstones for extra shine! Very pretty! Very dainty! Pierced with hypoallergenic post. Zircon is an important jewelry stone, but is not well-known by the general public. In fact many people who are aware of zircon confuse it with the diamond simulant cubic zironia. The two materials are, of course, completely different. Cubic zirconia is a lab-created material while zircon is a natural mineral with a very different chemical composition. Zircon belongs to the large group of minerals known as neosilicates that contain both silicon and oxygen in their composition. The group includes the various garnet varieties, peridot, topaz, andalusite, kyanite, tanzanite, the various types of beryl, tourmaline and quartz. Zircon is zirconium silicate, and is the main source of the element zirconium, a lustrous white-gray metal resembling titanium. Zircon is important in the gemstone world because of its very high refractive index (1.810 to 2.024), which is somewhat close to that of diamond (2.417 to 2.419). Zircon combines exceptional brilliance with impressive dispersion (also called 'fire'); the tendency to split white light into the spectral colors. Indeed, in the days before diamond simulants like cubic zironia and moissanite, inexpensive white zircon was popular as a substitute for diamond. GORGEOUS EARRINGS!