Tourmaline is a huge family of boron silicates that share crystal structure, but vary in chemical composition. It has a hardness of 7- 7.5 , cleavage is indistinct, a white streak, and a glassy luster. Tourmaline is known to be virtually any color. This awesome gem can even be multi-colored, such as watermelon tourmaline, which was was first discovered in 1902 at Dunton Quarry in Oxford County, Maine. The pegmatites of Maine still provide a rich source of this most sought after variety.
Tourmaline can be found in the U.S., Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Africa, and Brazil. Here in the United States, tourmaline can be collected at the:
Himalaya Mine at Lake Henshaw, California
Oceanview Mine in San Diego County, California
Hogg Mine near LaGrange, Georgia
Harvard Quarry, Oxford County, Maine
Brushy Creek Mine near Asheville, North Carolina
Mt. MIca in Paris Maine
And finally Mt. Apatite, near Auburn, Maine.
