Befotaka Sud District, Atsimo-Atsinanana Region, Fianarantsoa Province, Madagascar
A terminated, gemmy, and deeply colored aquamarine from Madagascar. This piece comes from a recently discovered pocket that produced a small quantity of excellent heliodors and aquamarines. Some were obviously one or the other, this one is more ambiguous
Despite this being my fourth trip to the country, I had only ever come away with a few beryl samples previously. With that said, good beryl specimens are not common from Madagascar-- in fact, the last time I know of a decent pocket being discovered was almost 7 years ago. That is not to say there have been none since, but I certainly haven't seen new examples in any quantity since then.
The color is somewhat difficult to get it right in the pictures, so I have photographed it with a couple different backgrounds-- the super bright image is an iPhone picture in direct winter sunlight.