Customer Reviews

The Tourmaline Group

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This may be the best book (may be nearly the only one in print on this group, although Mineralogical Society of America might have published a text on ring silicates including tourmaline). Probably rates a 10 for the tourmaline group.

Although not intimidatingly over-technical, this is well organized, readable, but although readable it is not a mere amateur's book. It is written for the advanced amateur as well as for the professional mineralogist; it is a compilation of data and information known up to about 1980.

Chapters include Nomenclature and history, Symmetry and Morphological Crystallography, Crystal Structure, Chemistry and Alteration, Inclusions and Intergrowths, Color and Optical Properties, Physical Properties, Synthesis, Uses and Recovery, Tourmaline as a Gemstone and in the Decorative Arts, and Occurrences and Genesis.

Appendices include interfacial angles, analyses, and localities famous for tourmaline. Includes an exhaustive bibliography and a useful Index. The paper is good, the font is easy to read, the diagrams and b&w photos are informative, the color plates of outstanding tourmaline specimens are wonderful, and the text informative, interesting, and delightful to any lover of tourmaline. -DMM