.82" Watermelon Tourmaline Crystal - Aricanga Mine, Brazil

Watermelon Tourmaline Crystal - Aricanga Mine, Brazil #206862

This is a gorgeous, .82" long, bi-colored (watermelon) elbaite tourmaline crystal that was collected from the Aricanga Mine in Minas Gerais, Brazil. It has deep-green coloration at its termination which continues down the sides of the crystal. The green is interrupted by a rose-red/pink core. Truly a magnificent tourmaline specimen!

It has been mounted to an acrylic display base with mineral tack for aesthetic presentation.

Elbaite is a form of tourmaline and is perhaps the most multicolored mineral. 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, often with striations that run along their length. Aggregates of elbaite can occur as botryoidal, columnar, radiating crystals, and in compact masses.

Elbaite has a variety of names (classic and modern) depending on the colors it presents, including 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 interior).

The chemical formula of elbaite is Na(Li,Al)3Al6(BO3)3Si6O18(OH)4

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