Elbaite (Tourmaline)

Simply looking at this specimen has brought me a broad smile of contented delight.  Tourmaline never fails to please, but this crystal goes way beyond and gives you a warm inner glow much like the crystal itself.  This specimen is from Barra de Salinas in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil.  It is a single yet composite crystal, built from a slightly outwardly divergent cluster of sub-parallel prisms giving multiple terminations around the prism faces and the main termination itself.  Each individual prism is a mottled turbulent mix of leafy-lime-green, pale pear-green, creamy-lime cheesecake green and pale lemon-green, always with a short but distinct candy-pink to rich cranberry-red termination.  This mix of more unusual colours combines to give a mottled spectrum throughout the crystal that is quite spectacular and bewitching.  The top terminations are a complex group of intergrown pyramidal faces, all mirror bright and in ever-changing patches of cloudy pink, gemmy green and translucent cranberry.  The prism faces possess a transparent skin under which an inner surface lustre and texture of vertically brushed silk resides.  It is stunning.