Tourmaline: The Stone With Infinite Colors
Tourmaline comes from the Sinhalese “turamali”, which means “multi-coloured stones”.
Indeed, this stone has a very wide chromatic range and can even be the result of an assembly of two or three colors. Tourmaline rarely has one and the same color, the raw stone is often multicolored.
There are also crystals of one color inside and another color outside. This is the case of watermelon tourmaline which combines the color pink inside and green on the periphery, like watermelon, hence its name.
The tourmalines most encountered in jewelry and jewelery are:
- Rubellites (pink/red with often a hint of purple)
- The verdelites (green-yellow to green-bottle through dark green or olive)
- Paraiba tourmalines (very bright blue due to copper sulphate)
- Indicolites (light blue to bluish-green)
- Polychrome tourmalines
Where is tourmaline found?
Tourmaline is a stone found all over the world. From Africa to Asia via Russia, America and even Europe. But its main deposits are in Brazil and Sri Lanka.
It was in 1989 that the Paraiba tourmaline was discovered by Brazilian miners. Never had such a stone been seen before. Today this tourmaline is the rarest and most sought after and therefore the most expensive.
After the Second World War, German immigration was considerable in the State of Minas Gerais in Brazil, where very important mines were discovered. These immigrants forged close ties with Idar Oberstein. This small German town has become the main cutting center for the production of the Cruzeiro, Golconda, Virgem da Lapa and Itatiaia (Jonas) mines.
A few high jewelry pieces in tourmaline
Necklace chopard tourmaline paraiba diamonds 18 carat white gold
If you are interested in tourmaline, do not hesitate to discover what Les Pierres de Julie offers in store…
We are also available for any free expertise of your tourmaline jewelry, for this you can send an email with your photos to contact@lespierresdejulie.com.
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