Tourmaline
Discovering the Rubellite Tourmaline
Rubellite is a variety of tourmaline that attracts the eye with its vibrant and intense red-purple colouring. Its name comes from the Latin ‘rubellus’, meaning reddish, recalling its fascinating hues. This gemstone is highly prized not only for the beauty of its hues, but also for its symbolic meaning of passion and love.
Chemical Composition and Colouring
Tourmalines are a family of minerals that exhibit a wide range of colours, varying according to their chemical composition and, more specifically, the chemical impurities that may be trapped when they are formed. In the case of rubellite, the colouring is due to small amounts of the chemical element manganese.
Depending on the amount of manganese present, tourmaline can take on different shades: pink, red, red-purple, orange-red or brownish red. Many gemmological laboratories and professionals believe that the term ‘rubellite’ should be reserved for tourmalines with a red base colour, to the exclusion of pink.
Commercially, the shade considered most valuable for a rubellite is a pure or purplish red, vivid but not excessively light or dark, evenly distributed over the gem.
Often, in order to improve rubellite colouring, gems are subjected to certain treatments that may include heating, usually at low temperatures, and irradiation.
More information on Rubellite
On a geological level, rubellite, like many other varieties of tourmaline, is found in so-called pegmatitic settings. Pegmatites are rare magmatic rocks derived from the slow cooling of magma in the earth’s depths. This process has led to the accumulation of chemical elements favourable for the crystallisation of various gem minerals, sometimes even large ones, among which tourmalines stand out with their eye-catching colours.
The most commercially important rubellite deposits are found in Brazil, Nigeria and Mozambique. Other sources of secondary importance are found in the United States, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, Tanzania, Kenya and Madagascar.
Tourmaline mines in Mozambique were discovered in the early 2000s and are located near the village of Mavuco in Nampula Province (north-eastern Mozambique), which geologically falls within the pegmatitic district of Ligonha. Several varieties of tourmaline are produced in the area, including rubellite.
Rubellite mined in Mozambique not only has exceptional transparency, but also a particularly intense and brilliant colouring, especially when, in addition to having traces of manganese, it also contains chemical impurities of copper, the same chemical element responsible for the much sought-after ‘neon’ green-blue colouring of the Paraíba tourmaline. In this case, rubellites can be defined as ‘cuprifers’.
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