Crystal Chemistry and Trace Elements of Tourmalines

Researchers involved: Simon Philippo – Kim Totaro

Themes: critical and strategic minerals / home mining

This research project aims to study the crystal chemistry of tourmalines from our collections. Thanks to the Cassedanne collection, as well as samples collected during scientific missions by museum researchers in Brazil and Mozambique, the MNHNL possesses an extremely diverse and, above all, perfectly referenced collection of tourmaline‑group minerals.

Precise characterisation of tourmaline‑group minerals requires analytical needs that are both exacting and complex. The joint supervision of Florent Bomal’s doctoral thesis makes it possible to carry out this determination for a significant series of our collection specimens. At present, most of our samples are simply labelled “tourmaline”. The tourmaline group currently comprises 39 different species. It is therefore essential, for the accuracy of our reference collections, to assign a precise name to each specimen.

For the MNHNL, this doctoral thesis will bring considerable added value to our collection, thanks to an in‑depth study of its specimens and the introduction of these specimens as references in the database that will be available to scientists and gemmologists. This collection is partly linked to a major work on the minerals and gems of Brazilian pegmatites, written by Jacques Cassedanne and Simon Philippo.

Publications :

+ CASSEDANNE J. & PHILIPPO S. (2015) - Minerals and Gems deposits of the eastern Brazilian pegmatites, Volume 1 - Ed. Musée national d’histoire naturelle Luxembourg, p. 1-376 (isbn 978-2-919877-20-1)

+ CASSEDANNE J. & PHILIPPO S. (2015) - Minerals and Gems deposits of the eastern Brazilian pegmatites, Volume 2 - Ed. Musée national d’histoire naturelle Luxembourg, p. 377-674 (isbn 978-2-919877-21-8)