The Gemstone Astrology Fire Opal Sapphire Yellow tourmalines Good life

Fire opals are unique in the lush world of the opals. They were already admired as symbols of the most fervent love in ancient times, in India and in the ancient Persian kingdom, and among the peoples of Central America and the Amerindians. It was believed that a gem that bubbled over with vivacity to such an extent as the fire opal could only have been created in the waters of paradise. The Mayas and Aztecs loved this gemstone and liked to use it in mosaics and for ritualistic purposes. They called it quetzalitzlipyollitli, the 'stone of the bird of paradise'.

Fire Opal

Yet one day, the gemstone knowledge of Mexico's natives, which had been handed down from generation to generation, somehow sank into oblivion for a long time ...
... until, in or around the year 1835, the fiery treasures hidden in the Mexican highlands were remembered, and work was gradually begun on the systematic mining of the places where they had been found. Today, the fire opal is regarded as the national gemstone of that country.

It is in Mexico that the most significant fire opal deposits in the world lie. Rock strata containing opals run through the Mexican highlands, with their many extinct volcanoes. With a few exceptions, the gemstone, which lies hidden in cavities and crevices, is extracted in open-cast mines, the work giving rise to impressive canyons with walls up to 60 metres high and labyrinthine passages which wind their way through the mining areas.

Sometimes, these orange-red gemstones are also found in other countries, in Honduras or Guatemala, in the USA, Canada, Australia, Ethiopia and Turkey, but these are mostly sites of little or no economic significance. With Brazil it is a different matter. Several years ago, in an agate mine near Campos Borges in the South Brazilian State of Rio Grande do Sul, fire opals coloured yellow to orange were discovered. They distinguish themselves by their beautiful colour, often with slight clouding, but without play of colour. Their warm, expressive orange comes in all varieties from yellow to light red, sometimes with a brownish undertone. What is particularly remarkable is the sheer size of the raw stones. Some of them are as big as a man's fist, which opens up completely new possibilities in the way they can be worked. Today, these Brazilian fire opals are setting new trends in the fascinating world of gemstones.

Sapphire

In earlier times, some people believed that the firmament was an enormous blue sapphire in which the Earth was embedded. Could there be a more apt image to describe the beauty of an immaculate sapphire? And yet this gem comes not in one but in all the blue shades of that firmament, from the deep blue of the evening sky to the shining mid-blue of a lovely summer's day which casts its spell over us. However, this magnificent gemstone also comes in many other colours: not only in the transparent greyish-blue of a distant horizon but also in the gloriously colourful play of light in a sunset – in yellow, pink, orange and purple. Sapphires really are gems of the sky, although they are found in the hard ground of our 'blue planet'.

Blue is the main colour of the sapphire. Blue is also the favourite colour of some 50 per cent of all people, men and women alike. We associate this colour, therapy, gemstone jewelry strongly linked to the sapphire as it is, with feelings of sympathy and harmony jewelry, friendship and loyalty: feelings which belong to qualities that prove their worth in the long term – feelings in which it is not so much effervescent passion that is to the fore, but rather composure, mutual understanding and indestructible trust. Thus the blue of the sapphire has become a colour which fits in with everything that is constant and reliable. That is one of the reasons why women in many countries wish for a sapphire ring on their engagement. The sapphire symbolises loyalty, but at the same time it gives expression to people's love and longing. Perhaps the most famous example of this blue is to be found in music, in George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue". And the blue of the sapphire even appears where nothing at all counts except clear-sightedness and concentrated mental effort. The first computer which succeeded in defeating a world chess champion bore the remarkable name 'Deep Blue'.           [Top]

Yellow tourmalines

The tourmaline is a real miracle of colour. It not only comes in green, red, blue, yellow, colourless and black, but also as a multi-coloured or colour-changing gemstone or as a cat's eye. There are, furthermore, innumerable mixtures of colour, in all nuances and depths, and some very unusual tones too. However, until recently, there were no pure yellows in the rich colour range of the 'gemstone of the rainbow', as this stone is also known. Most of the yellow tourmalines found thus far had a slight tinge of brown. But the tourmaline not only has many different colours; it is also good for a surprise now and then, as for example at the beginning of the 1990s, when some fantastic blue-green to turquoise tourmalines suddenly arrived on the market from a find in Paraiba, Brazil.

Meanwhile, this colourful gemstone has taken the world by surprise again with another new variety, and this time it is a yellow one: in southern East Africa, in Malawi, a gemstone deposit with some wonderful yellow tourmalines was discovered in the autumn of 2000. The fresh, springlike yellow of these tourmalines is clear and pure and has just a very fine hint of green. Under the trade name 'canary', the new tourmaline variety has now begun to circulate.

This is a particularly interesting kind of tourmaline. It is fine traces of magnesium that are responsible for the electrifying yellow colour. Since not all the raw crystals actually show that radiant yellow when they are found, some of the stones first have to submit to a period spent in the oven at approximately 700 degrees Celsius. Without this treatment, the colour would have a slight brownish tinge. The treatment only brings about the desired result because tourmalines typically display different colours and different colour intensities in different directions.

By heat treatment, the tourmaline's second colour, in this case a light brown, is also transformed into the coveted radiant yellow. This is a kind of treatment customarily undertaken with many gemstones, the result of which is irreversible.

Large yellow tourmalines are rare in Malawi too, the more so in view of the fact that only some 10 per cent of the yield is actually of gemstone quality at all. When cut, more than 95 per cent of the stones weigh less than one carat. However, they have wonderful wearing qualities, for like all tourmalines the canary-yellow beauties from Malawi have a good hardness of 7 to 7.5 on the Mohs scale.

There is another speciality that distinguishes these gemstones from others, and that is their fine smell. It is an odour that the person wearing the stone will not notice, but the cutter will, while he is giving the raw crystals their final shape with his steady hand and taking great care that the fresh yellow is brought out to the best possible advantage. Experienced cutters are particularly fond of working on these gemstones, and say that these are the only gemstones that smell good.

So why does a gemstone 'jewelry' smell? The explanation is simple: tourmaline crystals are often embedded at the place where they are found in a black material which needs to be removed before cutting begins. One day, the owner of the gemstone mine in Malawi discovered that the unwanted black material was easier to remove if the raw crystals were first boiled in water to which lemon juice had been added. So since then, the yellow tourmaline crystals from Malawi have had not only the pleasant colour of fresh lemons, but also their fragrance. At least up to the moment when cutting starts.           [Top]

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