Elbaite

specimen number:
2102448

location:
Mt. Mica, Paris, Oxford Co., Maine, USA

description:

A loose grouping of translucent lustrous green elbaite crystals with some attached matrix. A previous label comes with the specimen stating that this is ex Harvard University collection, part of the Garfield acquisition in 1895.

The Mount Mica mine, located near Paris in Oxford County, Maine, is America's oldest gem pegmatite locality, famous for producing fine tourmaline crystals. Geologically, the deposit is an asymmetric, zoned granitic pegmatite dike of late Paleozoic age that intruded into the surrounding Paleozoic metasedimentary rocks of the Sebago Batholith aureole. As the volatile-rich granitic magma cooled slowly under pressure, large open cavities or pockets formed, providing the ideal chemical environment for the crystallization of minerals including multicolored elbaite tourmaline, lepidolite, beryl, and quartz. The deposit was discovered in December 1820 by Elijah L. Hamlin and Ezekiel Holmes, leading to the commencement of localized mining in 1821. Over the next two centuries, the mine was worked intermittently by various operators, including the Mount Mica Mining Company from 1881 through 1913, and underwent a significant commercial resurgence starting in 2003 under the ownership of Coromoto Minerals, LLC, which utilized modern mechanical excavation to reveal major new pocket zones into the twenty-first century.

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