Beryl var. Aquamarine: Mount Xuebaoding, Sichuan Province, China

Description

Species: Beryl var. Aquamarine, Muscovite

Locality: Mount Xuebaoding, Pingwu County, Sichuan Province, China

Dimensions: 18 x 10.5 x 5.5 cm.

China’s Mount Xuebaoding Tungsten District, located on a 5443 meter tall massif in the country’s rugged western Sichuan Province, has produced what are certainly the world’s best scheelite crystals, as well as world-class cassiterite and beryl var. aquamarine crystals. This excellent cabinet-size aquamarine specimen, mined in the summer of 2020, features lustrous, gemmy, pale-blue aquamarine crystals to 5.5 cm on muscovite matrix, showing the typical flattened “morganite habit” which Mount Xuebaoding aqua’s are known for. This is an excellent and large plate of aquamarine crystals from a classic and now basically exhausted Chinese mineral locality. Annette Slade photo.