Palelni mine, Khetchel village, Molo quarter, Momeik Township, Sagaing District, Mandalay Division, Burma (Myanmar)

The Palelni mine is a beryllium rich pegmatite area that has intrude in a peridotite body. The initial discovery was around 1993 and the production of gemquality material was sporadic: The main product are the locally called "mushroom" rubellite tourmalines. These fibrous tourmaline have usualy a schorl seed and then a mushroom-like termination area more or less developed is possible. Another type of rubellite is present under botryodal shape. These tourmalines are associated with quartz, orthoclase, beryl (aquamarine and morganite) and also petalite, phenakite and hambergite.

Note: "mushroom" tourmalines also occur at the Kat Chay mine (see there).

References:
- Kyi et al. (2005): Aust. Gemmol. 22, 303-309.
- Andreas Ertl, John M. Hughes, Stefan Prowatke, Thomas Ludwig, Franz Brandstätter, Wilfried Körner, and M. Darby Dyar (2007): Tetrahedrally coordinated boron in Li-bearing olenite from “mushroom” tourmaline from Momeik, Myanmar. Can. Mineral. 45, 891-899.