Some Exciting Travel Stuff

I’ve just been going through some amazing travel blogs, you will likely see them in my links. “Green Salamander” and “Footloose” really stood out. I like the idea of a trip to Myanamar and footloose mentions this person’s experience. I had always wanted to visit the Magook Sapphire/ruby Fields.

There is a great book out by Richard Hughes that talks of the gem caves in Myanmar. The rough gemstones are found lying in the gravels on the cave floor. These soils are called “byon”. I will offer a greater understanding of the Magook gem caves soon but in a nutshell the miners crawl through tiny crevices deep into the tunnel networks, scooping out the gem bearing soil for treatment on the surface. Exposed to heat limestone will metamorphose to marble and the impurities might sometimes crystallize as gems. Corundum gems (ruby and sapphire) often form in close association with marble. As water dissolves the limestone and marble beneath the stone fields, the gems fall into the cave soils and because of their weight (Around four times heavier than water) they will be concentrated in the certain sand bars and deeper crevices.

Some of the most spectacular Myanmar gem finds have been made in these caves though they are said to be very dangerous. Miners die here on a regular basis. The type of excavation is known as “Ludwin” and it is not as common as other surface mining methods that extract gems from buried gravel deposits in old river beds.

I have visited several marble caves in Ontario. I sometimes wonder if this concentration of sapphires in the cave soils is possible here as well.