MQA57 Beryl var. Aquamarine
Befotaka Sud District, Atsimo-Atsinanana Region, Fianarantsoa Province, Madagascar
A beautful aquamarine with a chisel-like temrination, from Madagascar. This piece comes from a recently discovered pocket that produced a small quantity of excellent heliodors and aquamarines.
Despite this being my fourth trip to the country, I had only ever come away with a few beryl samples previously-- usually nothing particularly gemmy. With that said, good beryl specimens are not common from Madagascar-- in fact, the last time I know of a decent pocket being discovered was almost 7 years ago.
It is somewhat difficult to get the color right in the pictures, so I have photographed it with a couple different backgrounds-- the super bright image is an iPhone picture in direct winter sunlight-- as you can see, the thing really glows if you light it correctly, and the effect can be recreated with a well-placed LED.