Tormaline: How Can one Mineral Have so Many Colors?

     As the title suggests the mineral tourmaline is very colorful. Tourmaline can be red, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, colorless, or even black. All of these varieties of tourmaline are transparent, except for the black variety. Perhaps the most interesting thing about tourmaline is that one crystal can have more than one color. The most famous example of this multi-coloration is a variety of tourmaline that is green throughout one part of the crystal and red throughout the rest. This is called watermelon tourmaline. Surprisingly tourmaline crystals can exhibit more than two colors within a single crystal as well. The piece that I own (the one that is pictured) actually has three colors: red, green, and clear. Some tourmaline crystals have been found that contained fifteen sections of different colors or hues. And, like amethyst, tourmaline will sometimes appear to change color when it is viewed from different angles. If you are interested in minerals purely for their colorful properties, be glad that there's tourmaline!
     Many of the different varieties of tourmaline have different names as gemstones. Red or purple tourmaline is called rubellite, blue tourmaline is known as indicolite, the orange variety of the stone has been named dravite in honor of Drave, Australia; colorless tourmaline is known as achroite, and black tourmaline is called schorl. All of these, as well as yellow and green tourmaline, are used as gemstones except for schorl, which is not very popular. Even some of the multicolored crystals are cut for use as gems.
       Tourmaline has one of the strangest chemical makeups that I've ever seen. In one book I own tourmaline is described as a "complex borosilicate." A description that's a bit closer to the truth would be "very very complex borosilicate!" The English philosopher John Ruskin once said that tourmaline's chemical formula looked, "more like a medieval doctor's prescription than the making of a respectable mineral!" After you see the formula written out [Na (Mg,Fe,Al,Mn,Li)3Al6(BO3)3(Si6O18)(OH,F)] I think you'll agree with him!
       Tourmaline is definitely not an ordinary stone. It has an astounding range or color, can appear to change color when held at different angles, and can have several different colors present in just one crystal. How many other minerals can do that?
        Tourmaline is found in Brazil, Russia, Madagascar, Australia, and the southwestern United States. I wish that is was found everywhere so that everyone could have a piece of it because, like all of our Creator's artwork, it is truly something to marvel at!