Gem: Liddicoatite tourmaline
Weight: 1.12 grams total weight - about 1/3 gram each
Dimensions: 9.2 to 15.4 mm long
Clarity: N/A - very gemmy, with excellent transparency. Some hollow tube inclusions in one.
Origin: Ambesabora Pegmatite, Betafo district, Madagascar
Treatments: None
Comments:
This set of THREE liddicoatite tourmaline crystals from Madagascar are quite special. There re a lot of liddicoatites that come out of Madagascar, but I have rarely if ever seen a purple one. In fact, I've almost never seen a purple tourmaline at all! Some purple examples come out of Paraiba in Brazil, and I have seen purple sections on one or another crystal over the years, but this small find has really quite extraordinary color. It's zoned, too! if you look at different sections of the crystal, there are a few shades in the blue purple range in there. Near the terminations, there is a thin stripe of nearly colorless material, which allows you to see the purple color even better, given the contrast.
Even though these examples are a bit small, they are very well crystallized, and one of them has a few fibrous hollow tube inclusions, which gives it a sort of a cat's eye look.
The longest crystal is my personal favorite, given all of it's colors changing throughout the length.
All of these gems have a single termination. All of them are in great shape, but the middle one in the group photo displays better facing one way than the other.