TOURMALINE
Birthstone: October
Wedding Anniversary: eighth
The word Tourmaline originates from the Sinhalese word turmali which means "mixed". Tourmaline, with its versatility and a broad range of colours and combination of colours, in all tones and hues from deep to pastels lives up to its name. It occurs in every colour of the rainbow and also in combinations of two or three colours in one single stone. These are known as bi-colour and tri-colour tourmalines. One very popular colour combination is the pink centre with a green rind found in Watermelon Tourmalines. Blue tourmalines, known as Indicolite are also very much in demand but the supply is more limited. Top green tourmalines, typically coloured by chrome (the same element that gives the green colour to emerald) known as Chrome tourmaline is a beautiful variety mined in Tanzania. Red tourmaline known as Rubellite nowadays has gained a lot of popularity. A new mine discovered in Brazil, produces one of the most expensive varieties of tourmaline known as the Paraiba in vivid blues and greens.
Tourmaline due to its vast colour range is said to be responsible for the encouragement of artistic intuition: it has many faces and therefore expresses every mood!
Tourmaline is mined in Brazil, East Africa, Afghanistan, Pakistan, USA, Sri Lanka and Russia.