FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Mathias]

Dear mineral friends,

As probably happens once in a while to every collector who buys collections, there are specimens with limited information attached to them.

The subject specimen is labeled as "Tourmaline - Ural, Russia".
Usually the internet can help, find comparable photo's, search on mindat etc.

In this case I was not able to find anything. Perhaps one of you can help.

The specimen involved measures 10 * 6 * 5 cm.

Thanks,
Mathias

[Peter]

It is kyanite and not tourmaline.
The deposit is primarily green paragonite schist with some areas of quartz and small 2-4 cm blue, sometimes gemmy kyanite crystals. I have visited this deposit and name of locality is Borisovskie Sopki, near the town of Plast, South Urals.

Kind Regards
Peter

[Mathias]

Thanks a lot Peter,

Kyanite it is!
This really helps.

Best regards,
Mathias

[Mathias]

Peter this was the original label.

After scratching the putty off (the plastisizer it contains, penetrates into many minerals causing fatty stains or even damage to the matrix), the Russian pen-written text on the piece of adhesive plaster remains.

Thanks again,

Mathias

[Peter]

Kyanite 1200 roubles

[Mathias]

[Peter]

Dear Mathias,
I only knew Greek alphabet when I was 20 and started to order Russian geological-mineralogical literature from my university Library. I knew I would just have to learn a few more letters, but handwritten is not the same as printed and quite confusing when one starts out.

In the early second half of the 1980s polish geologists, dealers, collectors came to Sweden and in the early 1990s many Russian dealers and collectors came and brought much of the production from the last decades of the Soviet Union.

That was the time not only tens of tons, but likely in three hundreds of tons of specimens and rough came to the west. Most of this material is not available anymore as many mines ceased operation.

Ths Kyanite deposit was a few meters long outcrop on the top of a small gently sloping hill on the south side of the Kanemka River. Nowadays you would need to dig many many cubic meters of material and many meters deep to get to a fairly untouched zone.