Moonstone
June's dreamy alternate birthstone with floating blue adularescence. Sri Lanka has shipped moonstone for 2000 years; the Meetiyagoda mines still work shallow shafts by hand. India, Myanmar and Tanzania's new blue sheen material complete the picture.
Known origins & mines
Meetiyagoda Moonstone Pits · Sri Lanka
Deep hand-dug shafts beneath village gardens mine blue-flash adularia veins — Meetiyagoda moonstone has exported since antiquity and visitor…
Ratnapura Gem Fields · Sri Lanka
"City of Gems" — 2500 years of pit mining in river gravels yield ruby alongside nearly every other gem species. Sri Lankan ruby leans pink (…
St Gotthard Adularia Passes · Switzerland
Alpine passes that gave adularia feldspar - the classic blue-sheen moonstone - its very name, worked since Roman times.…
Dumka Jharkhand Moonstone · India
Bengal-region diggings yield brown-bodied moonstone with strong blue sheen plus cat's-eye varieties feeding Jaipur carving workshops.…