Steamboat Tourmaline: One of California's Finest Minerals [+]

At nearly a foot tall this pair of red tourmaline crystals with green tips is one of the jewels in the crown of the Smithsonian mineral collection.

In 1907 the famous Steamboat Tourmaline was unearthed by Frank Barlow Schuyler in San Diego County in a rich tourmaline-bearing pocket zone in the mine which was named the Tourmaline King. It was then sold by Schuyler to Washington A. Roebling and it is now housed at the Smithsonian Institution.

The specimen’s two parallel crystals (which look like steamboat stacks) display a range of vibrant colors that start at vivid reddish-pink at the bottom and transition to a bright bluish-green at the top. The tourmaline crystals rise out of a base of Cleavelandite, which is perched atop a large quartz crystal.

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