Tourmaline

If you are on a lookout for a specific gem that has an incomparable selection of colors, then tourmaline should be on top of your list. According to the ancient Egyptian legend, the gemstone had a long journey from the very center of the earth and coincidentally passed by a rainbow and has somehow assumed the every known hue on the color palette. This significantly sheds light to the fact why tourmaline is aptly called “gemstone of the rainbow” up until today. Subsequently, its name was said to have been derived from the Singhalese language ‘ tura mali’, which literally means “stone with mixed colors”.

The chemical composition of this mineral is simply one of the highly complicated among all the silicate materials. According to top gemologists, tourmaline is a silicate of boron and aluminum but due to the isomorphous replacement, several types of foreign elements have entered into the structure such as calcium, iron, lithium, magnesium and sodium. Such factors explain why no two tourmaline stones are exactly alike, offering a burst of striking myriad of colors to suit every individual’s preference and whimsy. However, the trademark of this particular gemstone is not solely attributed to the overabundance of color, but it is also widely popular for is dichroism, which is the ability if the stone to vary in color intensity depending from which angle it is seen or looked at. Tourmalines are also largely distinguished because of its three-sided prisms since no other mineral display the same three-dimensional feature that is actually the result of the strong vertical striations on the faces of the prisms.

Among the jewelry traders, the gems that have specific color variants have their very own names: rubelite for the red tourmaline, the green ones are called verdelite, and the intense blue colored stones are called paraiba tourmaline, the latter was only discovered in 1987 at Paraiba, one of the Brazilian states. However, while there are some that only present singular colors, more often than not tourmaline are available in the market in a combination of two to three colors. Among the well sought after stone varieties are the ones showing cross section slices of color such as the slice of red at the center of the green color, which earned a rather charming nickname ‘ watermelon tourmaline’. While these stone offer an explosion of striking colors, there are also some crystals available in sedate colors such as the black tourmaline called the ‘mohrenkopf’, which can be mostly found in Germany.

The great thing about this particular mineral is the fact that is it extensively available in almost all parts of the world. However, the major deposits are said to be extracted from Brazil, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Other equally popular sources include Afghanistan, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Pakistan and Madagascar. Still, with the large sources readily available one can be hard pressed to find exceptional quality and fine colored tourmalines. This explains with the huge price variance of this gemstone in the market is probably as broad as the spectrum of color it is available.

Another noteworthy aspect of tourmaline is the fact that stylish individuals are not the only ones who are constantly attracted to this particular gemstone. Even scientists have expressed interest mainly because of its astonishing physical attributes as it was later discovered that tourmalines has the capacity to become electronically charged if heated and cooled down, displaying positive and negative energies in the opposite sides Such phenomenon is more commonly known as “ pyro-electricity”, derived from the Greek word ‘pyr’ which basically translates to fire. This gemstone can also be easily charged if subjected under pressure, with the polarity changing if the pressure is alleviated or taken off.

With all this exceptional characteristics, there’s little left wonder why tourmalines are widely regarded to be incomparable and fascinating among all gemstones available today and has become one of the popular choices for jewelry all throughout the years.