Tourmaline var. Elbaite

A crystal section of fluor-elbaite tourmaline, displaying a mix of greens and pink. This specimen comes from one of the only places in Canada to produce such crystals, the Leduc Mine in Quebec. The crystals form within a lithium-enriched granitic pegmatite. They are very hard to break out of the quartz host-matrix and so generally don't have terminations and almost always come out in split sections. Perhaps this is for the best as the exterior coating is a very dark green, almost black. Having the crystals split in this way allows us to see the colourful and glassy interior of the precious stone.