Australian Emerald
Australia has mined emerald since 1890, first near Emmaville in New South Wales, then at Poona in Western Australia. More than a century of on-and-off mining never made it a common origin on the market. The Curlew mine, back in production in 2023, has put a few stones into the trade, in quantities measured in kilograms.
Australian emerald at a glance
- Regions
- New South Wales, in New England, and Western Australia
- First deposits
- Emmaville, mined from 1890; Poona, where a first crystal was handed to the Geological Museum in 1909
- Documented sites
- Emmaville, Torrington and Fielders Hill, Poona, Menzies, Riverina, Curlew
- Recent production
- Curlew, a few kilograms of gem-quality material during the 2023 season
- On the market
- Rare, with no reference price published by an independent source
- Distinctive trait
- At Poona, mineralization dated to about 2.64 billion years, the oldest described as of 2017
Where are emeralds found in Australia?
The known sites sit at opposite ends of the continent. In the east, Emmaville, Torrington and Fielders Hill belong to New England, in New South Wales. In the west, Poona, Menzies, Riverina and Curlew are in Western Australia, with Curlew the furthest north, in the eastern Pilbara.
| Deposit | Region | Discovery | Documented status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Emmaville | New South Wales | Mined from 1890 [1] | Mine closed in 1897, intermittent prospecting until 1963 |
| Torrington and Fielders Hill | New South Wales | Zoned emerald described by the Australian Museum [2] | Commercial attempt in the early 1990s, abandoned for lack of volume [1] |
| Poona | Western Australia, Cue district | First crystal in 1909, geological survey in 1912 [3] | Intermittent mining; underground mine opened in 1979, stopped in 1980 |
| Menzies | Western Australia, west of Menzies [2] | 1974 [1] | Irregular mining since discovery |
| Riverina | Western Australia, 6 km north of Riverina station | Known since the late 1970s [4] | Worked sporadically, small amounts of facet-grade material |
| Curlew | Eastern Pilbara, Western Australia | Officially mined since the mid-1970s [5] | Idle from the 1980s to 2011; gem-quality production in 2023 |
One confusion keeps coming up in searches. The town of Emerald, in Queensland, takes its name from a former pastoral run, Emerald Downs, and its surroundings are known for sapphires. None of the geological sources cited here places an emerald deposit in that state.
History of Australian emeralds: the first deposits
Australian emerald has a longer history than its reputation suggests. The first mine opened near Emmaville in 1890. Western Australia followed with Poona, where the first cut stones left for London before the First World War.
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1890
First extraction of emerald and green beryl near Emmaville. The Emerald Proprietary Company brings out a large quantity of pale to bright green crystals in the New England tablelands. [1] [2]
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1897
Only a small share of the beryl mined is of good quality and the mine closes. Prospecting resumes on and off from 1908 to 1963, with little success. In the early 20th century the district yielded more than 53,000 carats of beryl and emerald over some twenty years, about 10 kg. [1]
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1909
On the Poona tinfield, the State Mining Engineer obtains a large clouded beryl crystal from a prospector and presents it to the Geological Museum. The geologist H.P. Woodward surveys the area in 1912. [3]
Read the rest of the historyFrom 1912 to 2023
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1912 to 1914
The first Poona stones are often pale, and cleaner as the shafts go deeper. One of them, reduced from eight to five carats when cut in Europe, sells for £100 to a London dealer. In 1914 an expert from the Montana Sapphire Syndicate visits the deposit, then the war halts the project. [3]
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1927 to 1933
In London, shares in Star Emeralds, the company working Poona, soar and then collapse in 1928. About 4,000 carats come out of the mine in the twelve months before June 1931. By the end of 1933 the company has given up its leases. [3]
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1970s
Menzies is discovered in 1974 and Curlew enters official production in the mid-1970s. At Poona, the revival of the field gives the main mine its name, the Aga Khan mine. The involvement of Aga Khan III in the 1920s workings, often told, has never been established. [1] [3] [5]
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1979 and 1980
Underground mining starts at the Aga Khan mine and stops the following year because of mining difficulties. [1]
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Early 1990s
A commercial mining attempt at Torrington falls through for lack of stones in sufficient quantity. [1]
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2023
After standing idle from the 1980s to 2011, Curlew produces gem-quality material again. The first stones from that season enter the international trade in late 2023. [5]
What does an Australian emerald look like?
Each deposit gives different stones. Emmaville produced pale to bright green crystals and Riverina light green stones, while Curlew yields iron-rich emeralds. None of these looks is enough to pin down the origin.
Emmaville and Torrington · Zoned crystals
At Fielders Hill, near Torrington, the green forms sharply defined zones in colorless beryl. Cut perpendicular to the crystal axis, this material gives a standard emerald; cut parallel to it, a striped stone. Two stones from the same area can therefore look very different. [2]
Poona · A 2.6-billion-year-old deposit
Monazite dating places the Poona mineralization at about 2,636 million years, which in 2017 made it the oldest emerald mineralization described. The chromium comes from amphibolites and greenstones, the beryllium from pegmatite dykes. [6]
Some fluid inclusions there are elongated along the crystal axis and hold liquid with a gas phase. They tell us how the stone formed, without proving an Australian origin on their own. [7]
Riverina · Light green stones
In 2019 SSEF examined a small series of stones from 2.01 to 5.80 carats, of a rather light green, with prismatic zoning and hollow tubes parallel to the crystal axis. The geological setting recalls that of Kafubu, in Zambia. [4]
Curlew · An iron-rich profile
The 69 stones studied by GIA show a strong absorption band around 810 nm, linked to their iron content, and a refractive index of 1.580 to 1.586. Under the microscope they show two-phase fluid inclusions, dark mica platelets, feldspar and fluorite. [5]
Reputation, market and origin
What reputation do Australian emeralds have?
In the trade, Australia counts as a rare and unrewarding origin. Writing about the Riverina stones in 2021, SSEF, the Swiss gemmological institute, noted that these Australian emeralds are only rarely found in the trade. In the Journal of Australasian Mining History, Jim Enever concludes that Poona has remained a frustration to its operators.
The deposits did yield stones, sometimes beautiful ones, but never in enough volume to sustain a market. In 1914 the expert sent to Poona described a fairly reliable supply of emeralds of average quality, with the chance of finding finer stones. That promise never materialized on a commercial scale. [3] [4]
Among mineral enthusiasts, the image is better. Enever describes Poona as a site amateur fossickers want to have done at least once. [3]
Are Australian emeralds sold today?
Yes, in very small quantities. The Curlew mine produced a few kilograms of gem-quality material during the 2023 season, and its stones entered the international trade at the end of that year.
Curlew's operators planned to increase production in 2024. We have found no independent source putting a figure on the level reached since. Riverina has only yielded small quantities, sporadically, and the historic deposits are closed or worked irregularly. [1] [4] [5]
With no reference price published by an independent source for Australian emerald, this page does not put one forward. An Australian stone is judged on the same criteria as any emerald, set out in our guide to the price of an emerald.
We do not sell Australian emeralds. Our selection is devoted to Colombian emeralds, bought on the spot, with no middlemen, and certified.
How can you recognize an Australian emerald?
The eye is not enough. For Curlew, GIA shows that trace-element composition separates these stones from other iron-rich sources, provided several elements are compared to tell them apart from Russian or Nigerian emeralds. Their characteristics bring them close to the iron-rich, schist-hosted emeralds of Zambia, Brazil or Russia. Before buying a stone sold as Australian, check that the independent laboratory report actually includes an opinion on origin. [5]
Compare with other origins
Sources and references
- Geoscience Australia, Emerald. Discoveries, mining periods and production.
- Australian Museum, Emerald. Emmaville, Torrington and Fielders Hill.
- Jim Enever, An Intriguing Story: Poona and the Aga Khan Emerald Mine. Journal of Australasian Mining History, vol. 17, October 2019.
- SSEF, Emeralds from Riverina, Australia. July 2021, from Facette no. 26.
- Vertriest, Wongchacree and Sakpanich, New Emerald Production from the Curlew Mine, Western Australia. Gems & Gemology, Summer 2024.
- Morteani and Rhede, The multi-fluid metasomatic genesis of the Archean Poona emerald deposit. Periodico di Mineralogia, 86(3), 2017.
- Marshall et al., Pressure–Temperature–Fluid Constraints for the Poona Emerald Deposits. Minerals, 6(4), 130, 2016.
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