FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Tobi]

What are your favourite BERYL localities and varieties? My favourites are:

- Aquamarine with Albite or Muscovite from Northern Pakistan
- Aquamarine from Erongo Mts., Namibia
- Morganite (Brazil, Afghanistan, California)
- Emerald from Colombia
- Red Beryl from Utah

[Fiebre Verde]

[Tobi]

[Roger Warin]

A classic heliodor ! Formerly in the Dr. A. Rostenne collection, today in National Museum of Natural History "natur musée" of Luxembourg.

[Peter]

There are great many localities also in the regions you mention. For instance northern Pakistan has a huge number of locaities of various genetic classification and going into detail, thousands of veins of which hundreds are being worked, morphology, etching, color, paragaeneses varies very much.

One vein high on a vertical cliff in Pakistan produced the best single small specimen and this vein plus several others nearby produced incredible other styles of aquamarine from intensely colored to more common blue to light blue.

To the west are two main localities with aquamarine on muscovite, to the south to southeast of this cliff are hundreds of veins of which several produced incredible aquamarines, one locality with combination of white albite and red garnets, another locality with combination or triplet!, another locality with combination of.....

Volodarsk,with 1500 pegmatites mined , 2% yielded beryls. Now each pocket contained a very specific etching or several type of etchings and a few pegmatites had several pockets.

When w come to the Urals, a great number of veins produced incredible beryls, primarily heliodor. I can assure you that the best of these would make anyone fall off their chair.

The best single gem crystal I ever saw of Heliodor was cut in several sections and made into Jewelry in 1992 shortly after my visit. I had a PhD student employed for half a year to save it! The finest ones came from several veins in the Alabashka pegmatite field. I visited all the best ones several times.

There were also some rare lovely Vorobeyevite pink and white ones in the Urals found long before a banker got the pink variety renamed after him! Such is the world.

In Europe, a pocket we worked 15 years ago produced by fare the finest gem beryl crystals ever found in the European Union.When two geologists care to visit us in the mine and were shown one 8 cm one, they were shocked about the intense color and immediately remarked , much more intense then any in Volodarsk.

There are several finds, and specimens which are little known, only among a few people. Not all the best are publicly displayed.

Among my absolute favorites are 5 pockets in Volodarsk, two pockets in Finland, 7 pockets in the Urals, over a dozen pockets in Pakistan in various regions, and a few other lesser known localities, not on mandate or in any books.

Perhaps some more light will be shed if I take my time to write about them but I have a young son and it is more important to be with him I think.

[Peter]

As Dr. Warin's photo shows, the quality, etching colors vary in Volodarsk, also in the same biggest pegmatite beryl producing pocket. Over 2 tons produced! Not counting specimens miners traded for a bottle of Vodka, gave to museums, geologists....
Cheers
P

[Peter]

When it comes to Brazil, the old Golconda Mine, although perhaps only two of the great gem crystals are preserved to my knowledge, a suite of mines north of Teofilo Otoni - Padre Paraiso - Pioneer- .......produced wonderful aquamarine and heliodor, two mines in Bahia incredible aqua and heliodor respectively.....
The best aquamarine specimen in Bancrofts book fromm 1973, The Worlds FINest Mineral Specimens is a matrix from Mina Palatial, in the Smithsonian collection. Although a nice matrix, it does not even coe close to the finds a few years later t Virgem da Lapa and other mines already mentioned.

P

[John S. White]

I may have posted this before but it seems to fit the theme. A favorite of mine.

[Jesse Fisher]

An old specimen from Audon Chilon (Sherlova Gora) in Siberia. The specimen was once owned by John Sinkankas and is pictured in both his "Emeralds and other Beryls" and "Amateur Geology" books, albeit in black and white. He once told me that he had acquired it from the American Museum of Natural History in the 1960s. Beryls from this deposit may be blue or green as this one, but most show the characteristic color banding perpendicular to the C axis.

[Thomas Uhlig]

I am fond of the Beryls from Volodarsk and Brazilian Beryls in general (in particular Aquamarine and Morganite). But of course there are so many more interesting occurences, for instance the intensively colored Aquamarines from Jos, Nigeria.

What I really like is the combination of etch patterns with gem quality.

[rweaver]

A few from San Diego Co., California

[Fiebre Verde]

Aquamarine and Emerald.

For those interested, there is an article related to bi-coloured beryls written by George Bosshart and published by Palaminerals a while ago
m.palaminerals . com / bosshart-beryl /

[daviddillman]

How rare are emerald/aquamarines from Pakistan? Looks very unusual.

[Peter]

David, this specimen where half is emerald and other half goshenite or very lightly colored aquamarine is in fact from a little known half meter wide pegmatite vein way northeast of, and not at associated with the Swat Valley/Mingora emerald deposits.

The pegmatite vein has large slender emeralds to 2 cm thick and 15 cm long or more. At one end where there are pockets, some specimens like this have been found quite a few years ago,

A little sad when people do not take care of the source locality but just guess. I am quite sure it was originally delivered with all information.

Cheers
Peter

[Jesse Fisher]

Another San Diego beryl, a nice morganite miniature from the White Queen Mine collected by Bob Dawson in 1987.

[Josele]