Corundum (ruby) and Spinel (ruby spinel) - Mogok, Myanmar
Ruby and spinel from Mogok, Myanmar are among our Top 100 Minerals.
The Mogok stone tract in northern Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has been mined for rubies since well before its annexation by King Nuha-Thura Maha Dhama-Yaza in 1597. Local people did the mining and the king confiscated the best pieces. After the annexation of Burma by Great Britain in 1886, investors formed the Burma Ruby Mines Company, Limited, which modernized the mining operation and prospered for almost forty years.
Since 1925, ruby mining has been under the control of the locals with much of the work being done by hand. The area remains among the world’s principal sources for rubies along with Thailand, Cambodia and more recently Vietnam. Although tens of thousands of ruby crystals have been recovered over the centuries, large, lustrous crystals are quite rare. Specimens are particularly rare because most crystals of high caliber are cut and polished, and fashioned into gems for use by the jewelry trade.
More commonly seen on the mineral market are superb single and twinned octahedra of ruby spinel on white marble matrix, or as loose crystals, that occur together with its corundum cousin in the placer deposits and marble host rocks of the stone tract. Not exactly a “poor” cousin to ruby, ruby spinel holds its own as it has been seen fit to adorn royal regalia.
