Plum Tourmaline

Plum Tourmaline is a trade name for elbaite displaying a deep purplish, plum-like color, sitting between red rubellite and blue-violet indicolite. The hue typically comes from manganese, sometimes with traces of iron contributing the cooler violet tones.

It overlaps with material historically called siberite, a purple-red tourmaline first famous from the Ural Mountains of Russia. Plum-colored stones are appreciated for their rich, gem-like depth.

Like all elbaite, it is lithium-rich and crystallizes in the trigonal system, sharing the prismatic, striated habit of the wider tourmaline group.

Plum tourmaline grows in lithium- and manganese-rich granite pegmatites. As the last fluids of a granitic melt concentrate boron, lithium, and manganese, elbaite crystals form within open pockets, and manganese imparts the pink-to-purple coloration.

The specific plum shade arises where manganese (which gives pink/red) combines with a touch of iron or with structural changes that shift the tone toward violet. Some natural reddish-purple color, and the purple seen after heat treatment of certain stones, both occur in the trade.

Sources include Brazil, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and historically the Ural Mountains of Russia.

Look for a purple-to-plum body color, hardness 7-7.5, vitreous luster, and white streak. Pleochroism is helpful: plum tourmaline often shows two distinct tones (for example purplish and a lighter pink or violet) as the stone is rotated.

Rough prisms carry lengthwise striations and rounded triangular cross-sections. Strong birefringence may let you see doubled facet edges through the table.

Distinguish from amethyst (quartz, hardness 7, weaker double refraction and different optics) and from purple sapphire (much harder, denser). A refractometer reading near 1.62-1.64 with strong birefringence confirms tourmaline.

Plum tourmaline is cut as a faceted gemstone for rings, pendants, and collector pieces, valued for its unusual purple range, which is less common than pink or green tourmaline.

Fine, richly colored stones (especially classic siberite-type material) are sought by collectors and connoisseurs. Its good hardness makes it suitable for most jewelry.

Metaphysically, purple tourmalines are linked to intuition and the crown chakra, a spiritual association rather than a measurable property.