©Copyright 2018 GEOSCIENCE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
11060 Campus Street • Loma Linda, California 92350 • 909-558-4548
All Galleries
All Images
Tanzanite & tsavorite
Tanzanite and tsavorite are two very rare and valuable metamorphic minerals that formed during interaction with fluids rich in elements like vanadium, manganese, and chromium. Tanzanite occurs almost exclusively in a 7 km by 2 km zone in the Merelani Hills area near Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. It is a type of zoisite in the epidote mineral group with vanadium and chromium impurities giving it a blue or violet color. Tsavorite is in the garnet group, with the green color also coming from trace…