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Tourmaline is a chameleon of a gemstone, presenting itself in ruby reds, emerald greens, citrine yellows, and even blends of greens and pinks called watermelon. Cut from six-sided crystals, tourmaline is hard but brittle, which means it can be...
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Tourmaline is a chameleon of a gemstone, presenting itself in ruby reds, emerald greens, citrine yellows, and even blends of greens and pinks called watermelon. Cut from six-sided crystals, tourmaline is hard but brittle, which means it can be difficult set in a ring or bracelet. And because inclusions and color variability are common in tourmaline, it can be equally difficult to find two stones that are a precise match, making it a poor choice for earrings. The reason why tourmaline is so mercurial when it comes to its color is because its chemical composition is extremely variable compared to other gemstones. It is also dichroic, which means that beyond its composition, the colors of a cut piece of tourmaline can vary when viewed from one direction versus another. At its core, tourmaline is a borosilicate, but the presence of iron, lithium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium, as well as other elements and combinations thereof, affects its color. There are also cat’s-eye tourmalines, usually of pink, red, or green, which are the result of fine, needle-like inclusions in the stone that run roughly parallel to one another, causing the polished gem to exhibit chatoyancy, or a cat’s-eye effect. Tourmaline arrived in the West from what is now Sri Lanka in the early 1700s. Some sources claim the name comes from the Sinhalese word describing gemstones of mixed colors or simply mixed stones, while others claim it was a word applied to a yellow form of zircon. Regardless, the name stuck. Ironically, the most common type of tourmaline is schorl, which is almost black due to it high iron content. In antique Victorian Era jewelry, schorl was used extensively for mourning jewelry because it was harder, and thus longer-lasting, than jet. Most red tourmalines are cut from rubellite, although pink tourmaline is also sold under that name. Rubellite is one source of cat’s-eye tourmaline, and it's mined in Madagascar, Myanmar, and East Africa. Tourmaline that appears in...
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