Tourmaline - knowledge base, jewelry

Properties of tourmaline, physiological effects, zodiac signs and tourmaline jewelry.

Tourmaline is a gemstone known in ancient times in the Mediterranean.
It only entered Europe in the 1700’s. It got its name because of its varied color (comes from Sinhala language, spoken by the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka). Monochromatic tourmalines are rare, there are usually several shades within a crystal, or different colors may be found. For example, the inside of crystal may be red and the outside green, this kind of tourmaline it’s called watermelone tourmaline.
It is glass-shiny from the direction of the crystal plates and wax-shiny on the fracture surfaces. It is electrically charged by various effects such as heating, cooling, pressing or rubbing the tourmaline crystal. Because of this phenomenon, more needs to be cleaned than other gemstones.
The most sought after are pink, bright red and green tourmalines. Different forms of grinding are used. Heating can slightly improve the color of tourmaline, but the color of the stones changed by irradiation is not permanent. Due to its wide variety of colors, it is easy to confuse it with other gemstones. E.g.: amethyst, citrine, zircon, chrysoberil, morganite, peridot, ruby, emerald, topaz.

Chemical and physical properties of tourmaline:
Category: turmalin
Color: colourless, pink, yellow, red, brown, green, blue, violet, black
Streak: white
Cleavage: indistinct
Fracture: uneven, conchoidal, ridge
Mohs scale hardeness: 7,0 – 7,5
Specific gravity: 2,82 – 3,32 g/cm³

Major metaphysical healing properties attributed to tourmaline:
Detoxifying effect, improves brain function, protects the spinal column, balances the right and left hemispheres of the brain, benefical to paranoia, dyslexia, creates inner peace, cleanses the chakra, relieves fear and gives self- confidence.

Zodiacs associated with tourmaline gemstones:
Tourmaline is the gemstone of the zodiac sign of Capricorn, Aries and Libra.

Click here to read about the general characteristics of horoscopes!

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Variants of tourmaline

Watermelone tourmaline

Inside of crystal is red and the outside green. Tourmaline gemstones are always polished to achieve the most beautiful effect with a combination of colours.

Akhrot turmaline

Very rare, colorless. It doesn’t show dichroism, so it can be sanded in several directions. Pink tourmaline can be decolorized by heat treatment.

Rubellite tourmaline

Red or pink variety tourmaline, a very reare gem in this family.

Dravite

Dravite, also called brown tourmaline, is the sodium magnesium rich tourmaline endmember. Can be lightened by heat treatment. It got it’s name from the river Drava.

Verdelite

The shades of green.

Indicolite

Shades of blue.

Siderite

It got it’s name from it’s location. It’s shades from purple to violet.

Schorl

Brownish black to black. As a gemstone doesn’t have much value.

Elbaite

A lithium- tourmaline minerals, it’s comes from Elba Island.

Buergerite

Comes from United States. Flour- buergerite.

Tsilaisite

Named after a place of Madagascar. Magnesio- tourmaline

Uvite

It’s named after a province in Sri Lanka

Liddicoatite

Fluor- liddicoatite, it’s a calsium tourmaline.

Occurrence of tourmaline
Brazil, Australia, India, Kenya, Afghanistan, Madagascar, Tanzania, USA, Srí Lanka, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Switzerland and the island of Elba.