Joined: Fri Oct 19, 2007 5:04 pm Posts: 1642 Location: Walnut Creek, CA
After looking at the beautiful emeralds of the Alti Tauri, I recalled that they may not be the only source of emerald in the Alps. In Italy we don't lack anything ( just kidding ) and of course we have emeralds (?) too!
In Val Vigezzo there are some albitized pegmatites (a quite peculiar mineral paragenesis there) that are relatively famous for their minerals. Mostly because of the discovery of vigezzite and roggianite, BUT around the 70's some fine green beryl specimens were found. I don't feel to formally call them "emeralds" because honestly there's some confusion in literature. In the analysis done for the publication of the booklet about minerals of Val Vigezzo it is shown that the Cr content is too low to be the cromophore. In further papers it is said that a decent amount of Cr is present in green crystals. I think the analyses are as good as the user (and the technique/instrument) that did them, and knowing some people involved in this researches, I have some personal ideas I'd keep for myself. Besides, I've not enough info to be sure of anything...
This is the sample I own, it's from Pizzo Marcio (literally: "Rotten Peak" ) in Val Vigezzo:
More green in person than what you can see in the monitor... Sort of "low quality Brazilian emerald green" aka a sort of yellowish-green. (I've to get rid of my table lamp... it casts a blue shadow I often can't get rid of, even tweaking with the white balance...) Some (very few...) transparent xx have been faceted (max ~ 1 ct.), but I only have that opaque crystal, nicely shaped as an hex prism.
The best xx are found in muscovite-rich pockets (you can google to see a couple of images of semi-transparent green xx).
In case you are planning to hunt for Italian "emeralds" (?), you should forget about these ones since the albite pegs have been cultivated for the extraction of albite for ceramic industry, and only some leftover detritus (with maybe some pleasant surprises, but...) is left...
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2005 6:14 pm Posts: 640 Location: Hohe Tauern N.P., Austria
Thank you for sharing with us. Great write up!
Nice specimen, it indeed looks Brazilian...
As with many gemstone occurrances in Europe, the mining for industrial commodities has the upper hand...
Everytime I pass the Scheelite mine in the Alti Tauri (I love this Translation Maia ), I think of all those Emeralds and Aquamarines that have been crushed to powder and from now on I will also salute to every piece of Italian Ceramics!
Just for the record, we will also have to add a story about the other small emerald deposits in Europe: The one in Norway and the Rila Emerald deposit in Bulgaria (On my list for next Summer).
_________________ Gemstones are everywhere. You just have to dig deep enough to reach them.
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