Description

Detailed Description

This is such a great piece – the whole thing is a floater, with a doubly-terminated elbaite tourmaline, albite crystals and a microcline crystal. The elbaite crystal is colour-zoned throughout, with the darkest green through most of its length, palest pink (virtually colourless) at the steeper termination to the lower left, and then at the upper right, beautiful mid-green capped with a very thin colourless (or perhaps very pale pink) zone. The green section at the right-hand side termination is clearly visible because it is backed by the white microcline that reflects the light through it, as shown in the first photo. In the second photo, I’ve added obvious backlighting to highlight the colour variation visible when examined with strong light. In excellent condition – no damage to the tourmaline (some of the albite blades are incomplete). The elbaite crystal displays textbook hemimorphism. Super!

About These Stak Nala Tourmalines

Since the 1980s, elbaite toumaline crystals from the pegmatites at Stak Nala have been known worldwide. Particularly distinctive and prized when associated with albite crystals, these tourmalines are usually colour-zoned, with dark green to black-appearing centre sections, with zones of green, pink, blue or colourless zones  at the terminations – often, a closer inspection with strong light or a strong reflective background are needed to show these zones. The doubly-terminated crystals from Stak Nala are super examples of hemimorphism (the crystal forms present at one termination are different from those at the other termination). I was fortunate to acquire these from a member of the family that mines them.