PAKISTAN Tourmaline from Estaknala, located at foot of Haramosh mount, 7 kms from Sassi. (Between Gilgit and Skardu) The Northern areas conceals treasures, such of rubies, emeralds, sapphires, aquamarines, topazes, tourmalines etc. Unfortunately, their extraction directly in mother-rock, makes exploitation very difficult. Emeralds from Sassi found in a limestone.

A gravel-top 241 kms road track connects Gilgit to Skardu, capital of Baltistan perched 2438 meters above sea level. The journey takes 6 to 8 hours. Sassi is located at edge of this road, in geological belt made up amongst other things of amphibolites surrounding Nanga Parbat, one of famous peaks of Himalayas. In Sassi, life is hard, but inhabitants are friendly. At an elevation of 1,454 meters lies Gilgit. This wood bridge is one of longest of The Rakaposhi Volcanic Complex previously called greenstone complex covers a large part of Hunza Valley.Four main lithological elements comprising whole mass: 1 basalt-andesite-dacite-rhyodacite to rhyolite. 2 greenschists, actinolite,chlorite schists, hornblend schist, amphibolite and agglomerates 3 Medium crystalline limestone and marble, quartzite, chert, slates and micaschist. 4 The igneous intrusions are mostly in form of acid and basic sills and dykes. Leucocratic granites bodies are quite common

A day of July 1996 whereas I stopped in a small village in Madagascar, one presented samples of a strange stone to me. At first sight its color could reminds certain zircon, but I quickly identified them as garnet. After some palaver, one led me to place of discovery. I must acknowledge that I already knew inhabitants with whom I tied friendship previous year. On spot, a notch of about one meter fifty in a white color rock had created a not very impressive hole. But, according to its authors, it was particularly painful to produce it with iron bars only . I readily believed them after to be approached to rock. Some particles of this stone to orange - pink-brown reflections remained taken in bedrock. I encouraged my friends to be still sought. The first samples extracted from a not disaggregated leptynite did not exceed 3.15 cts. after cutting. The observation under day light and incandescent light showed a clear difference in color. Its change, from champagne color under daylight, to an intense red for some, or to pink-orange for others is due to chromium and vanadium traces. This characteristic confers an attractive aspect on these gems. Other samples were orange-yellow and did not change a color under various sources of lighting. Unfortunately, very hard and compact rock in this place, did not allow to extract many stones from it, and occurrence was abandoned a few weeks after its discovery.