GREEN TOURMALINE

The tourmaline is a unique miracle of colour. The gemstone comes in green, red, blue, yellow, but there are also colourless specimens and black ones. Often two or more colours are found in a single tourmaline crystal. Also rare and very highly esteemed are tourmalines which appear to change their colour and cat's eye tourmalines. Having said all that, green is regarded as the classical tourmaline colour. If you ask a gemstone merchant about a tourmaline, green, in most cases, is the first colour he will think of.


Chrome makes green tourmalines look like emeralds

Tourmalines are borosilicates with a very complex structure. The colours are caused, among other things, by tiny amounts of foreign matter and trace elements. Because of the complex structure of this gemstone, it exists in an almost endless number of varieties and colours depending on where it developed. There is something fascinating about this individuality, for practically each deposit has produced its own kind of tourmaline. With a little luck, now and then one may come across a really special highlight in the trade: a chrome tourmaline. That is the name given to the emerald green variety from Tanzania, coloured by vanadium and chrome. Its colour is extraordinarily beautiful, and amazingly similar to that of a fine emerald, which, after all, is among the most expensive gemstones in the world.

In the form of small, mostly dark crystals, tourmalines can be found practically all over the world. The places which supply crystals so large and beautiful that precious gemstones can be cut from them are, however, much, much rarer. The major green tourmaline deposits are in Brazil, Namibia, Nigeria, Mozambique, Pakistan and Afghanistan. But green tourmalines of good colour and transparency are a rare thing in any gemstone mine. And if, in addition, they are also free of inclusions, they are very highly coveted indeed.

Not easy to cut

Green tourmalines can be cut in all kinds of different ways. However, the cutting of a tourmaline does require special care, since the colour intensity of most green tourmalines is variously developed depending on the direction of growth. For this reason, dark stones have to be cut in such a way that the table is parallel to the main axis. The colours it contains are extremely pleasant to the eye and harmonious. The green tourmaline is like life itself, with all its facets of individual vivacity .