Rare blue Taaffeite

Abstract

Taaffeite is known as one of the rarest stone that was discovered in a parcel of faceted stones by Count Taaffe of Ireland in 1945. Although he judged as a piece of spinel with the mauve colour at　the first glance, he noticed that the stone showed a slight birefringence. This stone was later confirmed as a new mineral species. Most of the stone exist from mauve to violet, red is reported as rare colour. We have obtained a faceted taaffeite, which is a blue colour from Sri Lanka. The blue is extremely rare since discovery. Taaffeite spectral characteristics are similar to spinel. (Schemetzer et, 1989) Blue is colored with iron or cobalt contents, red is caused by chrome contents. Compared with the spectral characteristics of the spinel and the taaffeite, this exceptional blue colour taaffeite is expected containing cobalt. Therefore we examine it without destruction because of it’s rarity. We are due to report the blue taaffeite properties with some of spinel and taaffeite samples.