Tanzanite is the only commercially significant gemstone on earth that comes from a single location

There’s a gemstone in luxury jewellery today that won’t exist as a product in 30 years. Tanzanite is the only commercially significant gemstone on Earth that comes from a single location, only four square kilometres of land in the Merelani Hills of northern Tanzania. That’s the entire global supply. It was discovered in 1967 by a Maasai herder. The mineral name is blue zoisite. Tiffany & Co. acquired marketing rights in 1968 and renamed it because the company famously decided that “blue zoisite” sounded too much like “blue suicide” to put in a jewellery case. Current estimates suggest 20 to 30 years of commercial supply remaining. The geology that produced tanzanite requires a precise combination of pressure and trace vanadium that has not been replicated anywhere else on the planet. It’s also pleochroic, meaning it shows different colours from different angles: blue from one face, violet from another, red-brown from a third. It is the only gemstone in modern history with a known expiration date. That’s not marketing. That’s geology. #StoneFiles #Tanzanite #BlueZoisite #JewelryHistory #FineJewellery