A Paris precious stones exhibition is displaying valuable gems and exploring the history behind them.

Diamonds, rubies and emeralds have always been a symbol of wealth, power and extravagance and this new display in partnership with Van Cleef & Arpels at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle looks into their origins and how they were formed.

A tour shows visitors more than 700 minerals and gems and tells the story of their creation.

"The different convulsions of the Earth between volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, but also continental drift, have allowed a whole host of minerals to crystallize, to transform themselves, and some of them are going to be precious stones because they are brilliant, they are transparent, they have fabulous colors," said François Farges, exhibition curator.

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The wonders of modern science mean that now attempts can even be made to replicate rare gems such as blue diamonds.

"To remake the blue color of a blue diamond, the method I would say is perhaps the 'simplest,' is to take a blue diamond," said Farges.

"But a blue diamond of this size, it doesn't exist – it hasn't been found since the time of Louis XIV – so we have worked at length with physicists, with methods worthy of quantum physics and which have enabled us, after hundreds of tests, to reconstitute by a method of nano-deposition of particles, to reproduce the exact color of the blue diamond."