My spectrometer is finally operating properly. again. I am still learning about color analysis, but I should have a new report up on this site, that compares color caused by copper as a chromophore and other chromophores. The focus will be on five color matched pairs of cuprian and non cuprian gemstones and differences in their chroma, a measure of the purity of a gemstones color. The report should be posted soon, so please stop back if you’re interested in the fascinating subject of copper in tourmaline.
Bruce
About Bruce Fry
I was born in Summit, NJ in 1947 and graduated from Summit High School in 1966. I graduated from the Colorado School of Mines in 1970 and after spending another year in graduate school, I left to see the world of Brazil. After spending some more time discovering myself, I ended up working for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for 32 years as an Air Quality Engineer in the Department of Environmental Protection. I retired in 2007 and took up faceting gemstones again after a long hiatus that reached back to my twenties. I had started cutting cabochons when I was 13 and bought my first faceting machine when I was 15, but ran out of money and time until I retired.
My great love in gemology is tourmaline and the collection presented here represents my effort to get as much beauty and variety in the colors of tourmaline as I can. I was particularly lucky in being able to get unheated cuprian tourmaline before copper was discovered in gem grade tourmaline from Mozambique.
