Five years ago, at an emerald mine in the Mananjary region of Madagascar, a group of miners came across a large wall of mica containing heavy concentrations of small emerald crystals. Prospect seemed favorable to discover more emeralds, so small explosives were strategically planted in the mine.

The resulting blast brought down large portions of mica, a common host mineral for beryl, including a large piece containing an astonishing array of emerald crystals-;ater determined to have 127 emerald crystals on the surface area of the matrix.

“It looked like a bouquet of emerald crystals when it was first discovered from the first blast,” said the owner, who prefers to maintain anonymity.

In addition to this find, nearly 300 to 400 kilos of emerald still in the matrix, mostly of cabochon quality, were discovered with initial blast, according to the owner.

“In his 30 year history of emerald mining, the mine owner said he has never seen a sample like this. After years of finding significantly smaller samples of emerald material, a specimen on this scale was cause for a celebration.

People working in the mine had never seen anything like it before in their lives. When the stone was discovered they [the miners] cheered and then they prayed, saying it was a gift from God. After prayers, the miners had a party for nearly a week,” said the specimen owner.

Those who have seen the specimen agree it is a sight to behold. When it was first discovered, however, there were still thick layers of mica and quartz material covering most of the emerald crystals. “People could only assume the crystals went further into the matrix. We wanted to bring out as many of the crystals as possible before getting it certified,” said Jeffrey Bergman, the marketing agent for the specimen.

When preparing the specimen for certification many layers of the mica had to be removed, which helped to expose a greater number of crystals. According to Karim Guerchouche, managing director of Gem Source, the goal was to expose as much as 70 percent of the emerald crystals. In doing so, nearly 8 kilos of mica was removed during in a ten day process.

“There were many layers to work through. The material was very tough. Normally mica can be removed quite easily, but this matrix material was mixed with emerald crystals, making it very strong. Quartz was also part of the matrix which is also ver9y strong,” Guerchouche said.

Guerchouche thought he brought enough grinding and polishing tools to last him for 10 days of work. In six hours on the first day he wore out all of his diamond-tipped grinding bits.

“Sixty additional diamond-tipped grinding bits were purchased. During the cleaning process I was wearing down one bit every 20-30 minute. Such work placed a lot of stress on the motor for the grinding equipment which was operate by a foot peddle. In order to avoid burning out the motor I would operate the equipment with bare feet to detect an increase in the motor’s temperature. If it got too hot I would shut it down,” Guerchoche said.

To make matters worse, the first day Gurechouche’s work area had no air conditioning, making the already miserable working conditions nearly unbearable, he said.

In order to ready the specimen in time for its certification Guerchouche kept long working hours. Removing mica combined with emerald crystals was a slow and tedious job. At one point Guerchouche poured acid on the specimen to speed up the process. When he returned to work on it the next day the entire specimen had turned white. “I thought I ruined the piece. It took an entire day just to re-polish it,” he said.

Part of what kept Guerchouche going through the painstaking project was what he called the “discovery part” of the polishing process. “When I first looked at piece I knew there would be a lot of emerald crystals under the mica. There was much suspense with each crystal discovery: how long would it be, how clean…I had to go through the matrix slowly so not to damage the emerald crystals. I felt like an archeologist a dentist the way I had to dig out the mica to expose the emerald crystals,” he said.

The result was an emerald specimen weighing 76 kilos, measuring 64 cm x 45 cm x 23 cm, according to Christian Dunaigre, of the Asian Institute of Gemological Sciences (AIGS), who conducted the lab’s first off-site certification with thpis emerald specimen.

Fortunately for Dunaigre only half of the work had to be compared off-site. “The most important thing I had to do was remove a small representative sample from one of the emerald crystals. Half of the reason I was there was to remove about 1.5 carats worth of emerald material from the specimen for further testing at the lab,” he said.

With this being the lab’s first attempt at an off-site certification much equipment had to be transported. Over the course of two days, Dunaigre utilized many types of examination and measuring instruments commonly used for gemstone identification.

The cleaning process performed prior to identifying the emerald specimen helped expedite the certification process. Many crystals were deeply imbedded into the mica matrix, but the exposed crystals were easy to identify.

“The good thing is the crystals were well developed, presenting no real difficulties when examining the emerald crystals,” Dunaigre said.

Of the visible emerald crystals nearly 15 percent range in length from 11 cm to 20 cm, according to a report by Bruce Harris, an independent consulting geologist.

One of the first tasks was to count the number of emerald crystals exposed. White dots marked the counted emerald crystals, resulting in 127 exposed crystals available to be examined (including well developed inter-growth which was counted as single crystals). The number hung in the air as stares as of disbelief focused on the specimen below. This was the first time the exposed crystals were counted since the eight kilos of mica were remved from the specimen’s surface.

Next came the task of determining if the green exposed crystals were in fact emerald. According to Dunaigre and Harris, the specimen’s many crystals contained mica inclusions, which are indicative of emeralds found in Madagascar.

Liquid and mica inclusions, as well as other crystals, were more easily identifiable at the AIGS lab when the 1.5 carat piece removed from one of the specimen’s emerald crystals was faceted and polished, Dunaigre said.

During the off-site inspection, however, examining these inclusions required certain modifications to the binocular-microscope. Considering the massive size of this specimen, the microscope had to be reverse mounted to look over the specimen. Still, this modification only served to allow a small portion of the exposed crystals to be examined.

“Although remounting the microscope doubled our viewing ability of the sample, there were other, larger crystals that needed to be examined on other areas of the specimen. The microscope was taken out of the stand completely, using it in a freehand style.

While looking through the microscope I had to move my head up and down to focus on a certain crystal that was illuminated by the fiber optic light. The fiber optic light came in very hardy. Without it I could not have used the microscope in such a way,” Dunaigre said.

Gem Source also had a geological survey done on the emerald specimen. “It is very rare to see a group of crystals like this. To see large beryl like this concentrated in one piece is amazing. It is a beautiful and breathtaking mineral sample that demonstrates classic examples of beryl growth,” Harris said.

Bergman is looking to market the emerald specimen as a collector piece for a museum. The owner agrees, “the many beautiful emerald crystals make it a treasure in gemstone history to be viewed and appreciated by many people. There are many Picassos and VanGoghs, but there is only one emerald crystal like this.”