Specimen M 46126 Elbaite

Summary

Elbaite belongs to the tourmaline family so is classified as a semi-precious stone. It was first described from the island of Elba in Tuscany, Italy, but occurs in many places around the world, usually associated with granites or metamorphic rocks. This specimen comes from Brazil.

Elbaite forms many different crystal shapes, including long prisms like those of this specimen, or small needle-like crystals. It also exhibits a wide range of colours which are caused by trace impurities in the crystals. The most common colours are pink, and green but it can also be blue, orange, yellow, black or colourless. Quite often crystals have multiple colours in a single piece, often with an abrupt change. Pink and green is a particularly common colour combination. Its range and depth of colours makes Elbaite popular as a gemstone.

Elbaite is made up of sodium, lithium, aluminium, boron silica, oxygen and hydrogen arranged in ring structure.