Beryl var. Aquamarine with Muscovite

Item Description

From early finds of the 1990s, this is a sharp display plate with exceptionally gemmy and lustrous, baby blue crystals of aquamarine from the famous scheelite locality in China. It is ALSO famous for beryls, of course, but more known for scheelite (and in fact was mined for tungsten and ores...so the beryls really are a waste product in miner's terms). These have stunning luster, top as you can ask, and the larger crystals are to 4 cm or just a bit over. For some reason that is still a mystery to us, the aquamarines from Ping Wu seem to have the shape of morganites from Afghanistan or Brazil, the flat and disc-like look you see here instead of the elongated hexagonal structure of aquamarines from other locations. The specimen is cleaned lightly, but not heavily - and so the muscovite has some color to it which provides, we think, a nice contrast. Normally such specimens are essentially boiled in acid to clean them and this can burn the muscovite and make it silvery, which provides less contrast to the beryls. This natural matrix has some orange color due to iron staining, and provides a better contrast with the aquamarines.