Tourmaline For Sale

Tourmaline is a wildly popular mineral group among collectors given its proclivity to form large, striated crystals that appear in almost every color, even multiple colors at once! It often forms elongated, hexagonal, prismatic crystals with heavy striations. These crystals are typically unearthed in large, columnar aggregations.

Tourmaline is not one mineral but a group of closely related ones. The three most abundant varieties are schorl (black), elbaite (multi-colored, red, or green), and dravite (brown or lime green). Lesser known varieties of tourmaline include uvite, liddicoatite, and buergerite.

3 Items ($1,195 to $1,195)

Bicolor Elbaite Tourmaline Crystal - Cruzeiro Murta, Brazil #217181

1.6" Bicolor Elbaite Tourmaline Crystal - Cruzeiro Murta, Brazil

$1,195

Bicolor Tourmaline (Elbaite) Crystals on Feldspar - Brazil #206278

5.3" Bicolor Tourmaline (Elbaite) Crystals on Feldspar - Brazil

SOLD

Pistachio-Green Elbaite Tourmaline Cluster - Skardu, Pakistan #207156

2.6" Pistachio-Green Elbaite Tourmaline Cluster - Skardu, Pakistan

SOLD

Notable Varieties Of Tourmaline

Schorl - Schorl is the most abundant form of tourmaline, appearing virtually worldwide. It has been used for everything from jewelry to high pressure gauges and piezoelectric guitar pickups. The finest deep-black specimens are mined from pegmatites in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Madagascar, and Namibia. These are rather large, opaque crystals that make excellent display pieces, especially those in a contrasting albite or microcline matrix. A stalactitic variety known as velvet tourmaline is extracted from mines in Mexico.

Elbaite - This variety is easily the most collectable and sought after in the mineral trade. Elbaite makes exquisite jewelry and looks phenomenal in its raw form as well. Most elbaite forms in intrusive igneous localities called pegmatites. Cream of the crop specimens are mined in the Minas Gerais region of Brazil. These crystals are translucent and bi- or tri-colored, typically in a gradient from pink to green. A botryoidal variety referred to as mushroom tourmaline comes from Myanmar. Other noteworthy localities are southern California, Afghanistan, Italy, and Pakistan.

Dravite - Of the three primary varieties of tourmaline, dravite is the only one that forms in metamorphic locations instead of igneous pegmatites. Dravite is typically brown in color and the least sought by mineral collectors. Though rare, translucent crystals and lime green crystal varieties do occur, which are both highly sought after. The type locality of dravite is in Slovenia, which produces high quality brown specimens. The largest crystals are mined in Western Australia, and other prestigious specimens come from Nepal and Vietnam.

The Piezoelectric Properties Of Tourmaline

he piezoelectric and pyroelectric effect of tourmaline is directly related to the mineral group's polar structures. Tourmaline crystals have a trigonal structure that is necessary for crystal deformation under pressure to produce an electrical charge. Within the tourmaline group, some varieties are more piezoelectric than others. For example, dravite's chemical composition allows it to build greater charges than those of elbaite. This property makes tourmaline an important mineral for many uses, from watch-making to guitar pickups and infrared radiation. Perhaps the most important use of this effect is its release of negative ions in water activation and absorption. This is sometimes used to clean and purify water that may be contaminated in some fashion.

Common Associations

The many varieties of tourmaline each have their own individual common associations. However, because they all share a common chemical composition, they have overlap in their associations. These shared associations include quartz, albite, beryl, lepidolite, calcite, and microcline.

Notable Varieties Of Tourmaline

The Piezoelectric Properties Of Tourmaline

Common Associations