A new saturated purplish pink Cs-"beryl" from Madagascar: Preliminary analyses

Abstract

One of the most exciting materials to debut at Tucson this year was deep purplish pink "beryl" from a new find in Madagascar. In addition to its color, this material was particularly interesting because it showed anomalous properties for beryl (e.g., higher refractive indices than previously known), which were attributed to very high concentrations of cesium (Cs). The primary suppliers were Polychrome (Laurent Thomas, Chambray-les-Tours, France), Le Mineral Brut (Denis Gravier and Fabrice Danet, Saint-Jean-le-Vieux, France), and MJ3 Inc. (Marc Jobin, New York). The material was sold as "red beryl," "raspberyl," and "hot pink-red beryl." Combined, these dealers had about 5 kg of rough and a small number of faceted stones and cabochons at Tucson, although additional pieces were cut during the show. The largest supplier of rough was Mr. Thomas, who had approximately 0.5 kg for cutting faceted gemstones or cat's-eye cabochons, 2 kg that were carving quality, and 1 kg of crystal specimens. The material is referred to here as "beryl" in quotation marks, because work is still in progress to determine its mineralogical identity (see below)