Learn about Aquamarine
sea-blue to blue-green beryl; forms in pegmatites and alpine veins; prized for color, clarity, and dramatic matrix specimens.Aquamarine from Chumar Bakhoor, Nagar District, Pakistan
Chumar Bakhoor aquamarine is one of the defining specimen styles of the Pakistani Himalaya: pale to medium ice-blue beryl standing upright from glittering beds of bladed muscovite, sometimes accompanied by pink fluorapatite, pink to green fluorite, albite, microcline, quartz, topaz, schorl, and adularia. The locality is not famous simply because it produces aquamarine; it is famous because so much of its best aquamarine occurs as complete, displayable matrix specimens rather than as isolated gem rough. The classic Chumar Bakhoor “look” is a sharp hexagonal prism, glassy and transparent to translucent, set against a mica-rich pegmatite matrix that gives the blue color a cool metallic contrast.
Comments