Topaz

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Mineral guide

Learn about Topaz

hard, glassy orthorhombic crystals from pegmatites and rhyolites; colors range from colorless to pink; sharp terminations aid identification, localitie…

Regional guide

Topaz from Katlang, Pakistan

Katlang topaz is one of Pakistan’s great collector stones: a fluorine-poor, hydroxyl-rich topaz from carbonate-hosted veins, famous above all for natural pink to violet-pink crystals whose color is caused by chromium rather than by the post-mining treatments responsible for much of the pink topaz seen from other sources. The classic locality is Ghundao Hill, just north of Katlang in Mardan District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where a small, conspicuous limestone hill rises out of a cultivated plain and carries calcite-quartz-mica-talc vein systems that have yielded some of the most distinctive natural pink topaz specimens in the world.