Mineral Shows - Mineral Specimens, News & Reports

This Hall is primarily dedicated to jewelry but it is also where the special theme display is set up. This year Tourmaline was the co-theme along with trilobites for the show. The following are images from the tourmaline portion of the display.

The photo on the left is of the entrance to the theme displays.
The photo on the right is of the exit. It was very crowded in there!

What better place to start than with specimens of tourmaline from the type locality for elbaite -Elba Island!
These are only a small sample of the tourmaline collection from Dr. Federico Pezzotta from Elba Island.
I believe that this collection will be on display in Tucson next year as well. It is easily among the finest
privately owned collections of specimens from Elba.

Immediately next to the Pezzotta collection were specimens of the new mineral named after him - Pezzottaite.
These four images were part of a larger mind numbing display set up by French Dealer Laurent Thomas. Laurent
has the largest crystals of this mineral that I have seen anywhere. The two images at the bottom are of faceted
stones each well over 25 carats in size. In time Pezzottaite will be recognized as one of the rarest of gemstones.

This is a very large 15 x 10 cm rubellite specimen on display
most likely from the Tourmaline Queen Mine at Pala.

This 10 cm specimen from the Marcus Grossman collection of an
indicolite specimen from Paprok, Afghanistan caught my eye.

Keith and Mauna Proctor had a fine display with two cases of tourmaline crystals. The large crystal in the left photo is about 40-45 cm in length and the image on the right is of the famous Rose of Itatiaia from the Jonas Mine in Brazil.

Towards the end of the display were an amazing array of tourmaline slices showing the dramatic color zoning developed during the growth of the crystals. The majority of the slices were from Madagascar however many specimens of "Schorl" such as those from the Erongo Mountains were also displayed as slices. To my amazement even they possess visible color zoning when sliced thin enough. There were also numerous poster boards set up to explain the process of crystal growth and coloring. This was one of the top highlights of the tourmaline display in my opinion.

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