MQA16 Tourmaline var. Liddicoatite
A nice example of this very distinctive, deeply colored tourmaline from workings around Mahaiza. These are small, but unusually transparent for the area. Actually, more often than not, they are seen frozen in the matrixes of rhodizite-londonite speicmens from the same locality rather than as standing, terminated crystals.
I had just closed the doors and the car was about to start moving when a miner ran up to the car and handed me a small plastic bag with several of these wrapped in newspaper. I have come across these of every trip-- they are rarely large, and frequently damaged-- but a couple in this lot had decent composition and were fairly clean, so after spreading them out on the dashboard, I bought them and am posting my favorite couple here.