Into the blue

As one of the rarest gemstones, Paraíba tourmalines are getting rarer and even more desirable, reveals Joanna Hardy

- Joanna Hardy

IT is not very often that a discovery of a new type of gemstone makes the industry jump to attention. Most ‘new’ gems are first found in such small quantities or in colours not obviously attractive that they become specimen stones for the most devout gemologists only. Yet, when the Brazilian Paraíba tourmaline was first discovered in the 1980s, the market was thrown into a complete frenzy.

This is one of my favourite stones, because it comes in so many colours: rich reds, pastel pinks, peach colours, intense emerald greens, deep blues and vivid yellows, even a bi-coloured combination of pink and green in a single crystal, known as a watermelon tourmaline. The stone is only slightly rivalled by sapphire for its variety of colours.

Tourmaline covers a group of closely related minerals, including elbaite, schorl and dravite. It has a complex borosilicate composition and a hardness of 7½, so the stones have a good durability for setting into rings. The crystals are found in many parts of the world, including Russia, Madagascar, the US, Brazil, Myanmar and east Africa.

Tourmalines tempted the Spanish conquistadors in Brazil in the 1500s, but they likely thought the green tourmaline was emerald, which is unsurprising as they were stealing all the emeralds they could find from Colombia at the time. Although Brazilian stone cutters would have recognised the different crystal shapes of tourmaline and emerald, the Spanish would not have truly known what they were holding until the scientific classification of minerals in the 1800s.