ELBAITE TOURMALINE SPECIMENS

Elbaite is a multicolored form of tourmaline and is perhaps the most multicolored mineral on Earth. It has been discovered in virtually every color of the spectrum and has dramatically increased in popularity since the 1990s. While specimens are commonly faceted into gemstones, most high quality crystals are left as is or are cut and sold as cross-sectional slices. Elbaite forms as short, stubby and/or elongated prismatic crystals with striations that run along their lengths. Elbaite aggregates can occur as botryoidal, columnar or radial crystals and as compact masses.

Elbaite has a wide variety names (classic and modern) depending on the colors it presents. This includes achroite (colorless variety), blue cap tourmaline, chrome tourmaline (green variety caused by chromium impurities), fluor-elbaite, indicolite (blue variety), Moor's head tourmaline, mushroom tourmaline, Paraiba tourmaline, rubellite (pink-red variety), siberite (purple variety), verdelite (green variety) and watermelon tourmaline (green exterior with red to pink interior).