The origin of color in tourmaline from Mt. Marie, Maine

Abstract

In September and December 2010, Dennis Durgin sent this author two fragments of recently mined Mt. Marie tourmaline for color-origin investigation. The samples were yellowish green (GRR 2016, 19 x 12 x 9 mm) and dark blue (GRR 2924, 15 x 15 x 6 mm). The green piece displayed a prism face and was polished into a 6.06-mm-thick wafer. The blue fragment was sliced parallel to the c-axis and polished into a 1.25-mm-thick wafer. Absorption spectra were collected in the 350-1100 nm range using a silicon diode-array microspectrometer with a calcite polarizer, and in the 1000-2000 nm region with a Nicolet Magna 860 FTIR spectrometer with a CaF_2 beam splitter, a deuterated triglycine sulfate detector, a tungsten-halogen lamp, and a LiI0_3 crystal polarizer.

Additional details