Introduction

Green Tourmaline or Verdelite is a natural, semi-precious, green coloured Tourmaline gemstone.  Green is regarded as the classical tourmaline colour. If you ask a gemstone merchant about a tourmaline, green, in most cases, is the first colour he will think of. It also becomes electrically charged when rubbed or warmed by heat. When charged, it can attract dust and small paper scraps. When Dutch traders discovered this property, they used warmed Tourmaline to draw out ashes from their pipes and named the stone ‘Aschentrekker’, which meant ‘ash puller’.

In the 1500s a Spanish conquistador on an exploratory mission to Brazil found a green tourmaline crystal and thought it was an emerald. But his hopes were soon crushed when scientists in the 1800s acknowledged that the Tourmaline possessed different mineral species. Ancient legend said that Tourmaline is found in all colours because it travelled along a rainbow and gathered all of its colours.