Among the major mining regions in the world, Russia is a typical gemstone production area as Brazil, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, etc. In July 2014, I joined a group of Hong Kong’s renowned gemmologists for a field trip to the Ural belt to study the rich deposits of various minerals and rocks in such a major mineral base in Russia.
The Ural Mountains run approximately from north to south through western Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the Ural River and northwestern Kazakhstan. The area contains a number of ores and minerals.
During the trip, we went to several deposits including Lipovka pegmatite area, Koltashi corundum area, Malyshevo emerald mine, Korkodin garnet deposit and a gaspeite mine in Vishnevogorsk. We also visited two privately owned gemstone cutting factories and two museums.
Day one
We lived in Yekaterinburg where it was rainy, windy and cloudy. The temperature could drop to around 8 degree centigrade at night. Our first stop was the Lipovka pegmatite area. Pegmatite localities became world famous after the discovery of abundant gemstones especially tourmaline.
Unfortunately, due to the muddy slope amidst such a bad weather with strong winds and heavy rain, we did not find any specimens of pink or black tourmaline, beryl, garnet and etc. (Figure 1)
In the side 12 kilometres away from Lipovka, there is an alluvial deposit of Koltashi corundum along the Poloziha River where might produce muti-coloured corundum topaz, beryl, garnet, quartz and etc. (Figure 2)
Day Two
Before we arrived at our destination Malyshevo emerald mine, we passed by Asbest, a major mine of asbestos. (Figure 3) After two hours’ drive, we arrived in Malyshevo which is 98 kilometres from Yekaterinburg, Russia’s third largest city. The Malysheva emerald mine is located outside Yekaterinburg in Russia’s Ural Mountain region.
The mining operation started in 1831 and now it is already closed. It is reported that the mine is developed on one of the world’s most significant emerald deposits. We stayed in the dumping area (Figure 4) but hard to find any emerald crystals. Many years ago, people still could find big emerald in this deposit, as we heard.
Besides emerald, Malyshevo also produces varicoloured beryl, chrysoberyl, phenakite, topaz and citrine and alexandrite. We also visited a gemstone cutting and jewellery manufacturing factory in the area. (Figure 5) From rough stone mining to jewellery manufacturing, the factory is privately owned for one-stop services.
Day Three
We visited a demantoid garnet deposit in Korkodin. (Figure 6) Demantoid, a variety of andradite, is a calcium- and iron-rich garnet with colours ranging from pale green and yellowish green to fine emerald–green. Historically, demantoid was found almost exclusively in Russia's central Urals. This time we luckily found quite a lot of demantoid garnets at the mining site.
There is also a lapidary factory near the mine where we viewed the entire procedure of processing demantoid garnet, from crushing, faceting to sorting. Before leaving for Vishnevogorsk, we checked out a gaspeite mine searching for pyrite, chalcopyrite and black tourmaline. (Figure 7)
Day Four
This was the last day for our field trip. We went to Vishnevogorsk also called the cherry mountain. (Figure 8) The ground was damp after rain, and the muddy path was blocked by fallen trees.
Vishnevogorsk is a complex intrusion which consists of nepheline syenites, alkaline syenites and associated carbonatite stockworks. In the mountain area, we managed to find sunstone, sodalite and zircon.
Day Five & Six
Yekaterinburg Geological Museum (Figure 9) and Fersman Mineralogical Museum in Moscow (Figure 10) both keep huge and unique collections of underground wealth of Urals. The former accumulates quarts (colourless, smoked, morion, citrine and amethyst), red-brown stones, green minerals (malachite), garnets and many other minerals. The later as one of the largest mineral museums in the world, has established a database of more than 135,000 mineral items.
The inspiring visit to the museums put an end of our one-week field trip.
Acknowledgement
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr Edward Liu and Dr Yuri Shelementiev for their splendid organisation of such a wonderful, unforgettable and eye-opening trip. Special thanks to Gemmologists from Moscow State University and Sri Lanka, they guided us along the trip and were helpful with language interpretation.
About the author: Joanne Chan is the chief gemologist of the Hong Kong Jade & Stone Laboratory Limited.
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