Detailed information
Species
Elbaite
Dimensions
74 x 16 x 13
mm
Weight
32 g
Locality
Coronel Murta Jequitinhonha Valley Minas Gerais, Brazil
Condition
No recorded repairs
Although quite long at 7.4 cm in length, and with a really rich internal colour with great zonation, there is no disguising that at either end of this doubly-terminated Elbaite tourmaline its terminations have imperfections, but it is also unrepaired. It shows a classic flat pinacoid face at one end and a three-sided pyramidal termination at the other end, but one edge of the flat end is fractured away and one side of its pyramidal termination is naturally missing due to the way it crystallized, possibly in contact with another crystal. Coming from the modern classic Brazilian pegmatites at Coronel Murta in the Jequitinhonha Valley in Minas Gerais state, this crystal presents a very different colour to the typical pinks and teal-blue crystals. Instead, it possesses an inky blue cap to its flat termination, passing rapidly into a very dark bottle-green to dark olive-green body colour, eventually shifting to a brighter bottle green with a gooseberry-green pyramidal termination. With strong back lighting its colours look superb.