Tourmaline (var Fluor-elbaite)

A crystal section of fluor-elbaite tourmaline. One side of the specimen gives a good look down the crystal axis and the other displays the glassy interior, showing its pink core surrounded by a mix of green and blue. This specimen comes from one of the only places in Canada to produce such crystals, the Leduc Mine in Quebec, forming within a lithium-enriched granitic pegmatite. The specimens are very hard to break out of the quartz host-matrix and so they 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. A great example!