Tourmaline (Indicolite) (''spray'')

Item Description

Tourmaline is a very popular mineral due to the fact that the crystals are often quite colorful, sometimes showing multiple colors in the same crystal. Most of the time, Tourmaline forms in single prisms, but this piece is a notably rare "spray" comprising many gemmy/translucent, narrow prisms which range from a beautiful Indicolite blue to more of a Verdelite green, to nearly a colorless Achroite shade on the tips. There is a slight amount of chatoyant "cat's eye" effect than can be seen on the terminations. Most of the crystals are in very good shape, though there are a few contacts, so the piece is not pristine, but still very showy and certainly unusual for Tourmaline.
From the collection of David E Ziga, a geologist who graduated Miami (of Ohio) University in 2017, with a mineralogy background. Specimen #37.