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GALLERY
- OTHER LOCALITIES
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| Here, we put
images of localities not represented on the other pages.
Some, such as the Islands of Sri Lanka, Madagascar, and Australia
(sorry!) are significant sources of gemstones as well as mineral
specimens. |
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| Australia: |
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| Lava fields of
Queensland, vic.
Undara produce dark blue "dog tooth" sapphires
of volcanic origin. Some larger ones, a twin, and a
barrel-shaped crystal appear on the right. The
smooth, rounded surfaces are probably due to the intense
heat within the rising magmas that brought them to the
surface; almost melting them in the process! |
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| Madagascar:
Perhaps best known for lustrous and euhedral but fairly opaque rubies
and sapphires (right). the island of
Madagascar has a variety of
localities which produce attractive specimens, and sometimes
gemstones. |
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When these first appeared in Tucson in 2001,
they were called "tricolor rubies". They are from
Finoratsoa. Below,
left are two unusual wafer crystals from an old collection.
In the center is the 55-pound crystal I am holding on the home
page. It was found as |
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| a greenish river
cobble, which after acid cleaning revealed this outrageous particolored personality. The last two pictures are a
malnourished ruby (chromium deficiency), and a star sapphire
cabochon alongside a piece of rough which might produce another. |
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| Sri Lanka:
This island is one
of my favorite localities because of its outstanding bipyramidal
sapphire crystals. The first is ex
coll. F. John Barlow.
The gem yellow is ex coll. McGill
University, Montreal, Canada.
The center "pale bluish green" crystal is one of the original
specimens from a recent discovery near Passara. The last two
are ex coll. Bill Larson. |
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Some clusters have "character",
because they resemble other identifiable objects. Here
are a goldfish and a whale (left). The two on the right
(rocket ship and space shuttle) were my first two foreign
corundum specimens! NASA liked them, too! |
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Two more neat crystals appear on
the left. On the right are a multiply terminated blue
crystal from Ratnapura
and a historic specimen containing tabular crystals
in nephelene; collected c. 1890;
ex coll.
B. W.
Anderson, Kensington (Matwich) Museum (U.K.). |
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| Storage Bin: |
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Huge Madagascan sapphire, weighing about
47-1/2 pounds. Note single crystal on bottom, parallel
growth twinning on top (obtained in Tucson, 2005). |
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