Detailed information
Species
Elbaite, var. Rubellite
Dimensions
33 x 9 x 9
mm
Locality
Coronel Murta Minas Gerais Brazil
Condition
No recorded repairs
The richness in colour of some of these relatively modern Coronel Murta pegmatite Elbaite tourmalines is staggering. This small individual crystal, which reaches 3.3 cm in length, is technically doubly-terminated with a flat pinacoid face at one end and a sloping pyramidal termination at the other. However, the sloping termination is not perfect, with one edge of the prism prior to the termination missing from where it was presumably joined alongside another tourmaline crystal which is gone. That said, its colour is really fine: red to pink throughout with great translucency, and grading from deep strawberry red at the pyramidal end through uniform mid raspberry pink to a deeper, more intense thin band of raspbery pink at its pinacoid end.