Locality of the world famous Tanzanite crystals
The Merelani Mine in the Umba valley in the north of Tanzania is the only locality in the world that produces deep blue tanzanite. The name tanzanite for the blue variety of the mineral zoisite was affected by the jeweller Tiffany in the 60ies of the last century. The name “zoisite” was him too near the word “suicide”.
The Mine is divided in 4 blocks and is located 40 km south east of the city of Arusha. With quite simple mining methods, miners search for graphite veins in a depth of 700 m. The pockets with Calcite, Pyrite and Tanzanite occur in these veins.
Especially specimens like the 22cm high and 11.000 cts. heavy „Kilimandscharo” , the world’s biggest, undamaged and untreated crystal are fantastic examples of this wonderful gemstone.
