Gem rocks

Gem rocks are a unique type of rock that yield gems, rather than ore, when mined. They give 65 Mining experience per rock, regardless of what gem is mined. 40 mining is required to mine these rocks. The Gem Rock takes about a minute and twenty five seconds to restore, though the rate changes depending on how many players are connected to the server. The chance of mining an additional ore while wearing Varrock armour does not apply to gem rocks.

There are several locations where these can be found:
 * Shilo Village
 * Lunar Isle mine
 * Al Kharid mining site resource dungeon
 * Prifddinas

There are also a number of Kal'Gerion gem rock in the Kal'gerion dungeon.

The types of gems that can be mined are:


 * Uncut opal (Shilo, Lunar, Al Kharid)
 * Uncut jade (Shilo, Lunar, Al Kharid)
 * Uncut red topaz (Shilo, Lunar, Al Kharid)
 * Uncut sapphire (Shilo, Lunar, Al Kharid, Prifddinas)
 * Uncut emerald (Shilo, Lunar, Al Kharid, Prifddinas)
 * Uncut ruby (Shilo, Lunar, Al Kharid, Prifddinas)
 * Uncut diamond (Shilo, Lunar, Al Kharid, Prifddinas)
 * Uncut onyx (Prifddinas)
 * Spirit sapphire (Prifddinas)
 * Spirit emerald (Prifddinas)
 * Spirit ruby (Prifddinas)
 * Spirit diamond (Prifddinas)

The gem received is random - rocks are not bound to specific gems, except for the rocks found during The Tale of the Muspah. It is rare to receive more expensive gems such as rubies and diamonds. Gems are mined at a faster rate while wearing a charged amulet of glory and ring of wealth. Wearing a ring of wealth also gives a small chance to get two gems from one rock (a message will appear when this occurs).

A popular technique when mining these rocks is to bring a chisel and cut and fletch the gems into bolt tips, thus reducing the need to bank. Another popular technique is to drop the less valuable gems such as jades and opals to maximise the amount of money made.

The gem rocks can be used with the gem bag reward from Dungeoneering for minimal banking by fletching the cheaper gems to bolt tips and saving the more expensive gems.

Shilo Village
After completing the Shilo Village quest, access to the gem rocks is obtained. Additionally, the Underground Gem Mine can be accessed after completing hard tasks of Karamja Diary.

Based on a sample of 2084 consecutively mined gems at Shilo Village with a rune pickaxe and amulet of glory, the chance of mining each type of gem is as follows:

Based on the above table, this means on average the player will earn coins per rock mined, or an average of 27.69 Crafting experience and 4.8429 Fletching experience should the player decide to create bolt tips, assuming no gems are accidentally crushed.

Lunar mine
After completing Lunar Diplomacy, access to gem rocks within the Lunar Mine is gained.

Al Kharid
The Al Kharid mining site resource dungeon requires a Dungeoneering level of 75 to access. There is little competition due to the high requirement. Seven gem rocks are here as well as lower level implings that can be caught while waiting for rocks to respawn.

Based on a sample of 501 consecutively mined gems at the Al Kharid Resource Dungeon with a rune pickaxe, the chance of mining each type of gem is as follows: Based on the above table, this means on average the player will earn per rock mined, or an average of 25.25 Crafting experience and 2.5513 Fletching experience should the player decide to create bolt tips, assuming no gems are accidentally crushed.

Prifddinas
The 8 Prifddinas gem rocks, found within the Trahaearn section, yield different gems than other gem rocks found in RuneScape. Unlike the other rocks, they do not contain uncut opal, jade and red topaz, but instead offer uncut gems up to onyx and spirit gems up to dragonstone.

Based on a sample of 1,771 mined gems at the Prifddinas Gem Rocks with a rune pickaxe, the chance of mining each type of gem is as follows:

In a sample of 1000 rocks with a dragon pickaxe at Level 88; the following number of gems were mined:

Sapphire: 476; Emerald: 275; Ruby: 83; Diamond: 38; Onyx: 3 (0.3%)

Spirit Gems; Sapphire: 70; Emerald: 39; Ruby: 11; Diamond: 4; Dragonstone: 1 (0.1%)

Tai Bwo Wannai Cleanup minigame


Gem rocks can be found randomly while hacking jungle in the Tai Bwo Wannai Cleanup minigame. When a player discovers one, a message will appear saying: "The jungle parts to reveal a gem-rich rock". These rocks have gems encrusted on the surface, which disappear as the player mines it. The rock may be mined three times before disappearing. The colours of these gems are not an indication of which gems the player will actually mine.

Ice Cave
During The Tale of the Muspah there are gem rocks that contain only sapphires, no experience is gained from these rocks and they cannot be mined again.

Trivia

 * When the gem rock is mined, the xp lamp sound will play.
 * One of the Prifddinas gem rocks displays a yellow gem, despite there being no mineable yellow gems in game.
 * In the first week of release, gem rocks in Prifddinas gave a high percentage of summoning gems and uncut onyx.

Gem rockGem rock