It seems a new locality in Ethiopia has been officially acknowledged for producing copper-bearing tourmaline worthy of the coveted title as Paraiba. One of only four.
SSEF announcement
GIA press release has commented on this via social media platforms.
The amount of online buzz about this is becoming more apparent in mainstream media. Have already seen parcels being offered for material claimed to be from Ethiopia, yet, no one is providing lab results.
The GIA report has indicated that an ED-XRF analysis can be used to ID this Ethiopian material, a less expensive method than using LA-ICP-MS analysis.
Super exciting! 
Cheers!
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Nice to hear from you again and what great news! Paraiba type tourmalines very difficult to find on the market with very high prices. A new source is always welcome. More must be found. The geologic conditions are almost unique for a copper tourmaline.
1 Like
Nice to hear from you again and what great news! Paraiba type tourmalines very difficult to find on the market with very high prices. A new source is always welcome. More must be found. The geologic conditions are almost unique for a copper tourmaline.
Good to hear from you, too! Been a minute!
The amount of Lead is definitely unique and measurable in the Ethiopian material. Really glad to see the ratios being published in the GIA report. Been searching for other sources that may have seen similar trace element ratios. But I suspect it is too soon for others to have published their results.
Cheers!
during the neoprotorezoic to the proterozoic, the supercontinent of gondwanaland was formed when archean blocks of continent cratons collided; creating a series of orogenies. In the west, Amazonia and west africa collided, in the east, east africa,madagascar,india collided. Partail melting of felsic metamorphic rock created LTG granites, usual devoid of Cu and Pb. In Brazil, the granites intruded mafic basement rocks with copper sulfides, carrying the copper with it. Acidic fluid leached copper out of deep basement rocks- metabasalts, A similar mechanism occurred in Nigeria Ethiopia. Nigerian tourmalines are also high in lead. The tourmalines formed in the pegmatites were unusual for having many voids within the crystal structure witnin them. Copper and lead were forced into the voids by hot pegmatitic fluid highly enriched in Cu. Pb is of crustal origin, late fluids in the crust also forced its way into voids. Titanium and Iron, initial low were lowered more when they were also forced out by the high concentration of Cu, Pb. Ga, Ga substituted for Al. The Himalayan mountain belt created copper porphyry deposits in Tibet. The leucogranites of the Himalayan mountain front missed the copper. :
Thanks for posting the geologic process descriptions.
The challenge has been finding a centralized public-accessible database that includes the trace elements for gemstones. I was unaware of how much variation in Pb concentration exists with all four provenances.
Finally found a GIA article with Chemical Composition (LA-ICP-MS) for the original three localities.
What makes the Ethiopian samples unique is the elevated presence of Vanadium (V).
As commented in the original post, GIA and Gübelin will be publishing updated data in their respective periodic publications.
If anyone has had issues opening the original GIA article I posted, seems to be specific with the Chrome browser. It opens using Firefox or others. Here is a clean url (without trace to LinkedIn; where I originally saw the article): GIA Ethiopian Paraiba
Cheers!