[Jewelry making - Article 00776] - [Orchid] New Beryl from Madagascar

[Steve Green]

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>      Call me picky, but wouldn't a rich, saturated red beryl be
>     considered bixbite, rather than a variant of morganite? 

Dear Lee,

    In the case of this new Madagascan beryl it is very different from
    red beryl (bixbite) which is found exclusively in Utah. Explaining
    color in words is difficult but I'll try. I will also describe
    further the other differences that I saw: 

    a.. The rich saturated magenta raspberry red of the new material is
    not at all like the red beryls from Utah. It is much more fuschia or
    magenta. Not a pastel color either. I have seen a couple of XF
    morganites which came out of Madagascar pre 1985 which looked like
    the very best pink imperial topazes from Ouro Preto Brazil. This new
    material is similar to that color except many times more saturated.
    

    b.. The size of the new material was larger than any red beryl ever
    found in Utah by at least 10x. Some of the pieces I saw were as large
    as a walnut in the rough. Approximately 50 grams would be my guess.
    

    c.. The crystalization was totally different from hexagonal prisms
    of the Utah red beryl with the elongated C-Axis. The new Madagascan
    material that I saw was composed of oscillating stacks of tabular
    hexagonal crystals with a shorter C-Axis predominantly associated
    with moragnite. This shorter C-Axis crystals were bound together
    with their center lines offset (oscillating) to look like a stack of
    flat hexagonal blocks stacked unevenly along a wavey central axis.
    That is about as well as I can explain them from my brief contact
    with the new beryl. Seeing this new material would make it
    immediately obvious (to anybody) that it is not "red Beryl" in the
    classic sense. It is something entirely new and never seen before in
    the mainstream gem circles. Stay tuned, I'm sure that it will be
    written about in the publications. 

Regards,  Steve / Rough and Ready Gems, Inc.  www.briolettes.com
Gem briolettes in over 50 materials
Ultrasonic drilling of small round holes &  triangular, square, 
rectangular & oval holes too.


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