New discoveries of painite in Myanmar (Burma)

Abstract

Painite was discovered in the early 1950s in the vicinity of Mogok, Burma. For many years, only two crystals of painite (1.7 and 2.1 g) were known to exist. Much later, a third crystal was discovered in a batch of gem rough at GIA (J. E. Shigley et al., "New data on painite," Mineralogical Magazine, Vol. 50, 1986, pp. 267-270). The extreme rarity of painite began to change in 2001, with the discovery of an 11 g (55 ct) crystal, also near Mogok. The local gemologists suspected that it was painite, but they did not have the means to make a firm identification. A small portion of the crystal was removed and sent to this contributor's laboratory, where it was confirmed as painite. Shortly thereafter, an approximately 2.5 ct faceted painite was identified at a gem-testing laboratory in Thailand.

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