Far Rarer than Diamonds

Diamonds are ancient - billions of years old, known to mankind for millennia and found in deposits across the six continents of Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America and Australia.

Paraiba tourmaline is a very different story.

It's an exceptionally rare, vivid neon-colored copper-bearing variety of tourmaline, a run-of-the-mill mineral group.

And it's the new kid on the block in terms of both creation and discovery.

It was formed within the last few hundred millions of years and - remarkably - only discovered in 1989.

It's infinitely more rare than diamonds - total recoveries are estimated in the tens of thousands of carats - and it can command significantly higher prices.

In December 2025, for example, a 13.54-carat Paraiba tourmaline set in a Tiffany & Co. necklace sold at Christie's for $4.223 million, or more than $310,000 per carat - a world auction record for the stone.

Until now, known deposits of Paraiba tourmaline were limited to the Brazilian state where it was first found, and after which it is named, as well as Nigeria and Mozambique.

But now Ethiopia has joined that elite list.

Two of the world's leading gem laboratories, GIA and the Gubelin Gem Lab, have independently concluded that material from Abuloo, in Ethiopia's Oromia region, meets the widely accepted definition of Paraiba tourmaline, making Ethiopia a new geographic source of the gem. They made a joint official announcement on August 27.

Gubelin examined around 300 rough and faceted stones from several independent sources.

GIA examined more than 100 samples supplied by the Ferreira Group, a family-owned gemstone company.

Among them were an 8.70-carat rough stone and a 7.64-carat faceted stone.

Confirmation of the Paraiba tourmaline deposit is hardly going to change Ethiopia's fortunes overnight.

The discovery will complement its existing gemstone trade, primarily in opal, emerald and sapphire.

But it does raise a fascinating question: what other gemstones lie beneath the Earth's surface that we have yet to discover?

In November 2002, miners in central Madagascar discovered unusual deep-pink crystals in a pocket containing tourmaline and other gem minerals.

Samples were sent to Italian mineralogist Federico Pezzotta, who established that they were a previously unknown mineral species - a caesium- and lithium-rich member of the beryl group.

The mineral was named after him - pezzottaite - and was subsequently recognized by the International Mineralogical Association as a new mineral species.

GIA describes it as a new gem mineral.

Only a few dozen kilograms of gem rough were ever mined from the original deposit near Ambatovita in central Madagascar, making pezzottaite an exceptionally rare collector's gem.

In May 2014 there was another discovery in Madagascar, this time of gem-quality grandidierite.

The mineral itself was first discovered in 1902 by French naturalist Alfred Grandidier, but the material was extraordinarily scarce.

It was only more than a century later that a deposit was found producing transparent crystals large enough to facet.

Over a two-year period, miners recovered about 800 kg of rough from a new deposit near Tranomaro in the south of the country.

Because of its remote location and irregular veins, the deposit was worked by hand.

From that 800 kg, only about 60 grams consisted of eye-clean crystals - a gem-quality yield of roughly one crystal in 10,000.

Fewer than 10 faceted stones larger than 1 carat had been produced when GIA studied the deposit.

And these are only a few of the more striking examples.

Since Paraiba's discovery in 1989, the gem world has continued to produce remarkable discoveries, among them a deposit of jeremejevite in Namibia, and a solitary kyawthuite gem  in Myanmar.

Kyawthuite has been recognized as a new mineral species with its scientific description based on a single specimen: a 3.66-carat reddish-orange crystal discovered in Myanmar in 2010 by mineralogist and gemologist Dr. Kyaw Thu. It was subsequently cut into a 1.61-carat gem.

There have also been important new deposits of familiar gems - Ethiopian opal, Mozambican ruby and Ethiopian emerald, for example - showing that even minerals that are well known to science can still surprise us with new and commercially significant sources.

All of which helps to explain why diamonds occupy such a peculiar sweet spot among gemstones and puts our industry into perspective.

Rare enough to be precious, abundant enough to be mined and marketed on an industrial scale.

Have a fabulous weekend.