Olenite-Elbaite Tourmaline

Palelni mine, Khetchel village, Molo quarter,

Momeik Township, Kyaukme District,

Shan State, Burma

Ex Tomer Shapira

Photo by Tomer Shapira

Here is a wonderful example of one of the kinds of "mushroom" habit tourmalines that the Palelni mine in Burma is famous for. These ones are more smooth and also exhibit some transparency (you can see straight through to their dark stems).

While sight-IDing tourmaline species is a bad idea (for example, no you cannot tell the difference between an Elbaite and a "Liddicoatite" by sight), at some localities where enough testing has been done and some sort of visual ID has been roughly identified, you can get away with certain guesses. At the Palelni mine, these smoother mushrooms have been ID'd as Olenite or somewhere between Elbaite and Olenite tourmaline.

Since this piece has not been formally tested, it's being labeled as Olenite-Elbaite.