2.7" Colorful Elbaite in Quartz - Leduc Mine, Quebec

This is a colorful, 2.7" wide specimen full of blue-green elbaite formed in association with quartz, collected from the Leduc Mine of Quebec, Canada. Some ends of the elbaite crystals are nearly black, creating some striking contrasts.

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



SOLD
DETAILS
SPECIES
Tourmaline var. Elbaite & Quartz
LOCATION
Leduc Mine, Quebec, Canada
SIZE
2.7 x 1.6"
CATEGORY
SUB CATEGORY
ITEM
#284335