Content area
Full Text
For over a century the Tourmaline Queen mine near Pala, California has been known for large and beautiful crystals of tourmaline and morganite beryl.
The extraordinary blue-capped pink elbaites recovered in 1972 remain among the most famous mineral specimens of any kind ever found in California, and are surely the finest tourmalines ever recovered in North America. Here is the story behind this great locality, which today is once again producing fine specimens.
EARLY HISTORY
The most conspicuous feature of the eastern flank of Pala Mountain in northern San Diego County, California, is a white pegmatite vein that scars its smooth, brush-covered upper slopes for several thousand feet in a north-south direction, embracing within its thicker northern sector, the property known as the Tourmaline Queen Mine. In the immediate area of the old underground workings the vein ranges in thickness from about 8 to 14 feet. The pegmatite body, which intruded and developed within a series of step fractures in the granitic host rock, dips some 20 degrees to the southwest toward its point of origin.
The original discovery of pink tourmaline crystals at the Tourmaline Queen mine was made just a few hundred feet below the summit where the vein prominently crops out along the surface. The discoverers, Pedro Peiletch and Bernardo Heriart, two Basque sheep herders, eventually claimed this property as a quartz mine together with their partner John Giddens. They had been following their flocks over the slopes in the late 1800's when they came upon an exposed pocket that had spilled its contents across the soft topsoil of the mountain.
In 1905 George F. Kunz published a review of gem materials being found in California. It describes the Tourmaline Queen mine property as follows:
Other openings on Pala Mountain are the Tourmaline Queen and Tourmaline King, of which the former especially shows crystals of rich and varied coloring.
Tourmaline Queen Mine.-This mine, owned by Mr. Frank Salmon, John Giddens, Pedro Peiletch, and Bernado Heriart, is situated near the summit on the northeast slope of Pala Chief Mountain, at an altitude of 1450 feet. It is about 3 1/2 miles north by a little east from Pala, San Diego County. The section and quarter were not obtainable. The mine was located...