Tourmaline, Amorous Treasures of Nature

The distinguished difference of the Tianyu Museum of Natural History  located in Pingyi County, Linyi, Shangdong Province, China is that it is a natural geological museum, expect of the collection of fossils, mineral specimens is among one of its featured collections. The tourmaline which was found in Pakistan is the treasure of the museum. Contained with the color of red and green at the same time, the gem was named watermelon tourmaline due to its resemblance with a watermelon. With the meaning of “mixed gem”, the name tourmaline was derived from Ceylon. It was said that the first awareness of tourmaline in European originated in the year of 1703, several kids in Amsterdam, the Netherlands found that stones brought by the sailors can attract or repel light particles such as dusts or grass clippings expect showing various brilliance when appeared in sunshine. In 1768, the Swedish scientist Lyness found that the gem has piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties, thus it was known as tourmaline which would be applied to determination of light intensity and pressure changing.Heritage of nature is the key to open the natural human civilization. Tourmaline is a general category to the whole family of the kind; in fact there are about 14 members in the family such as Rubellite, Verdellite, Indicolite, Watermelon, cat’s eye and so on. With wide origins, the majority of the gem is from Brazil, Madagascar, Burma, Xingjiang and Yunnan of China can produce the stone as well. Though it is with a relatively short history to be used as decoration, has gained the favorite of people since its first time of being applied due to the beauty consists of its bright color and high-degree transparency. The charming gem is also known as the birth stone of October.Ci Xi, the Qing Dynasty Dowager of China had her grave goods a lotus engraved with tourmaline and a pillow made with watermelon tourmaline according to the historical records, the two items was worth a lot of many at that time. In the Qing dynasty, the gem had even ever been symbolization of power, which was the main material to decorate the official hat; in addition, the gem was used to make wearing beads as well. In the era of the Empress Dowager in particularly, tourmaline gained much attention in China. In addition to the favorite of emerald, the actually controller Ci Xi was addicted to the rich and colorful tourmaline as well.The chemical composition of the gem is ring silicate mineral, which is complex. Through the process of being heated and the subsequent cooling, or being pressured, or having friction with silk or wool, a crystal of the gem will become a charged body, which endows the gem ability to attract dust particles or even small pieces of paper.The highest price of the gem can trace back to Paraiba tourmaline in the market. The gem was found in Brazil in 1989. Due to the difficulties of mining and not big crystal, price of the gem has always been in a high state. It enjoys an especially favorite in Japan; the price of purchasing one can reach the standard of $ 20000 per carat. The red one is relatively of higher value, purple and red roses can be the best. The category of watermelon gains the most popularity in the Taiwan market.Many people just take tourmaline as a crystal with not that high price; however, they are two different minerals in nature radically. In the jewelry industry, tourmaline is in the vintage or high-grade gems group, the high quality gem of the kind is really very scarce in the market, while crystal, one of the semi-precious stone, enjoys a large share in the market. Due to the complicated chemical composition, there isn’t synthetic tourmaline appeared so far.