Watermelon Tourmaline Beads
Watermelon tourmaline beads are elbaite tourmaline that grew pink and green in the same crystal, pink at the heart and green at the rim like a slice of the fruit, or pink at one end and green at the other. Few stones put 2 such different colors into a single bead. This collection holds natural watermelon tourmaline in a range of finishes and shapes for bracelets, necklaces and earrings.
Appearance
In a strand of watermelon tourmaline most beads show one color or the other, soft rose to raspberry pink, grass to teal green, with a share of beads that carry both and a few that are nearly colorless where the zones meet. Ombre strands sort the beads from pink through white to green so the whole necklace reads as one slice. Slices, sticks and freeform chips show the growth zoning best, with a pink center ringed in green; rounds and rondelles mix the colors bead by bead.
Microfaceting suits the stone, since the small facets light up the translucent pinks and greens; smooth rounds and nuggets give a softer, more organic look; rough nuggets keep the crystal faces. At 7 to 7.5 on the Mohs scale, tourmaline wears well in everyday bracelets, and the beads need only a wipe with a soft cloth.
Formation and origin
Tourmaline grows in granite pegmatites, the coarse veins that form as a granite finishes cooling, and elbaite is the lithium rich member of the family that takes the brightest colors. Watermelon zoning records a change in the fluid while the crystal grew: manganese in the early fluid colored the core pink, and as iron took over the outer layers grew green. Brazil's Minas Gerais is the main source, with fine material from Nigeria, Afghanistan, Mozambique and Madagascar and historic finds in Maine and California, where the name watermelon was coined at the Newry mines in the early 1900s.
Pairings
Rose quartz beads: a pale pink that picks up the tourmaline's pink zones and quiets a busy strand.
Chrysoprase beads: apple green that matches the green rim, and both are translucent stones with a similar glow.
Clear quartz beads: colorless spacers that let the pink and green stand out and are the same hardness.
Meaning and Metaphysical Beliefs
Tourmaline takes its name from a Sinhalese word for mixed colored stones, and watermelon tourmaline has been a collector's favorite since the Maine finds of the 19th and early 20th centuries, when it became the state's official mineral. In metaphysical belief watermelon tourmaline is associated with joy, with the meeting of opposites, and with the heart chakra, where its pink and green are both traditional colors. These are traditional beliefs, not claims of physical effect.
