Brazil Documentary from 2012 - Gemporia

welcome to Brazil the fifth largest country in the world and home to some of the finest examples of gemstones you're ever likely to see Brazil's richly diverse landscape has been the ideal location for a variety of beautiful gemstones to slowly form beneath the earth during this show Steve Bennett takes you deep into the heart of southern Brazil to discover more about his vast gemstone wealth just arrived in southern Brazil can't actually get to a Matisse the Dassault biplane because it's in a very remote location so we've landed in the state above and we've got a lot of journeys that we need to go on [Music] after a long and arduous journey the team finally arrived at their first location a small peaceful town named after the very gemstone found here amethyst the actual mining takes place in rio grande do sul certainly here at amethyst of the soul about 35 meters below the surface of the earth it's that little Ridge over there you can see the little village that started to open up now where the miners are mining for the gemstone I'm gonna take you inside the mine so you can see exactly how difficult it is to actually get out the amethyst and with this mining in the south is very different to the North in the north you'll find big big crystals in the South it's always inside a geode this is a it's an amazing event many millions of years ago lava flowed over the seven Brazil and entrapped gas bubbles in those gas bubbles over millions of years we have a cocktail of elements we get different minerals different elements forming inside these big holes and and creating the crystals and creating the amethyst then man over the last 20 years or so has been mining down in these caves you'll see here that the drill holes and at first what they will do because it takes a long time to carve out of the hillside out of the mountain out of this very very hard rock the actual geode so what man will do first he will drill inside the geode and we'll have a look inside to look at the quality of the crystal see what the color looks like so what the clarity looks like and then and only then if the quality is good he'll actually extract the whole geo [Music] it's very easy to get complacent about many many gemstones and certainly the citrine's the amethyst the smokey cause the the green amethyst complacent because you see so much of it on the television when you come out of a mind and you realize how much work goes into taking out each and every gem geode I just had to go with a hammer I had to go with a jackhammer and it can take days just to get one geode at then some of the gemstones inside that geode are good enough for setting into jewelry some are good enough for keeping in as ornaments so we're making two strands but we get very very complacent but there's a big issue right now just like we've got issues in many countries where gemstones are getting harder to find they are down to only 100 mines in this area in the southern part of Brazil now there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them many many years ago but again it's another gemstone that we're finding it harder and harder to get so who knows maybe in ten years twenty years time they'll be less amethyst maybe we'll be thinking about em at least then as maybe to do it today we do tanzanite naik amethyst citrine is a member of the quartz family but did you know that the citrine in your jewelry may have started out life as an amethyst although occasionally we can discover citrine naturally normally most citrine certainly out of Brazil starts off life as amethyst it's then put into another like this for around 12 hours slowly the temperature increases increases up to four hundred and seventy degrees and they allow it to cool once they open the door some pieces have turned a beautiful yellow color some haven't changed at all some it turns a crystal completely white we never notice we open to do exactly what we get at but occasionally when you find that beautiful Brazilian citrine the color actually started off life as a little amethyst one of the latest trends and especially in the Chinese market is to buy complete geodes so if the amethyst inside a geode isn't quite gemstone quality it can still be worthwhile for the miners to extract it was actually banging each one of the stones he's got a lot of experience and he's listening to that the echo within the gemstone if it's got water in there it tends to be of a higher quality so we've sorted them into two grades doesn't even need to open them up his experience tells him just from the sand wherever the crystal structure is going to nice and what the colors look like inside it's just truly incredible such is the growing global demand for Gio's especially in China the here in Brazil actually repairing and rebuilding and reconstituting Gio's they might look beautiful when you get them home but actually a lot of them are completely rebuilt most humbling building in the town of Amity stood or soul is the amethyst Church it's very walls are lined with millions of amethyst gemstones reminding the local community that much of their good fortune comes from the discovery of this incredible gemstone when a wonderful church it was only built about six years ago and amethyst as I saw in Rio Grande I saw this is an incredible church all the walls are lined with a low grade amethyst it's a magical place is a mystical place I've got to say this is one the romantic most romantic buildings I think I've ever been in [Music] the next day Matt Bennett travels to outer plateau to discover more about a rare gem which is only found in one location I'm hearing the Kapow mine in - sheriff's in Brazil this is where we get our Imperial tour but it's the only place in the world we can get our Imperial topaz gem expert Ben Larry as we're here with me and his here he is to tell you a little bit more about that beautiful gemstone okay here we are at the original couple on mine of material topaz if you can see right over my shoulder here this was the original Pitt mine but and it's been worked already but they also have to deal with what's called an artisanal well that's actually coming up from underneath this particular pit it looks like a shallow mine but it's actually already 40 meters deep where they originally were pulling out the topaz this area is now completely mined out the water itself is just natural flow from the underground artesian well that you can see here up above us a new area over here where they're actually pulling the earth off of it so it's a very labor intense they have to first find the area where there's the topaz then they have to which they have they three different surveys that they have to do before they actually determine where they're going to be starting the mining then once they know the area where the topaz is located they then have to begin to clear a large area which they can step down to the actual area where they're gonna find this topaz once they get to that lower area that's when they could start to pull the topaz up I was told on a really good day if they're lucky when they hit a specifically really good location they stopped all the heavy equipment that's normally just pulls the earth and throws it in the big heavy trucks to move it over to the washing plant that's over here on my left and when they find a good area a good location they actually the miners get up from the heavy equipment and shovel that particular location for the Imperial topaz on a good day they say they can get maybe three to four kilos now that sounds like a lot of topaz but out of that three four kilos maybe maybe if they're lucky only 5% is cuttable so it gives you an immense appreciation for the amount of work it takes to get just down to that right gem that you might sitting in some beautiful jewelry store in your local town or city the next step of our journey takes us through the beautiful iguazu falls reminding Steve about the beautiful natural colors of many Brazilian gemstones we get many gemstones out of Brazil and it's hard to single to app but here under the waterfalls is to the spring to mine aquamarine and emerald beautiful aquamarine very famous of course Brazil Santa Maria but it's not all about Santa Maria you get some great great stunning clarity in particular with all of Brazil aquamarine and then of course well we talked about the emeralds this is a country famed for examples you might people claim that Colombia is better or Zambia's better but here in beautiful Brazil the colors here so reflective in the environment around us from the lush greens of the Brazilian national parks to the most majestic of green gemstones Steve travels to a working emerald mine to see why Brazil is the home of some of the world's finest emeralds so higher emeralds found in Brazil won many ways in different places right here in this mine you've got the pegmatite and the pegmatite carries the beryllium beryllium of course is where we get barrel from but you need a green chemical of green element to turn it green well the green comes from the chromium in the house rock so you've got the the beautiful pegmatite we've got the house rock you've got your barrel you've got your perineum in the middle a one-in-a-million chance of finding a little bit of emerald [Music] the actual walk in which the Emerald grows in this particular mine in Brazil very very soft if you look closely I can break off pieces with land it's a lot of prior sight in here locked out and because of that because you can break in here much easier than fighting the environment around it as much there are many many areas when you see some I presume in Emerald when you see that's got really nice clean crystals really good Diana T that is the reef visit it's off to the home of tourmaline and the main reason for our trip to Brazil the surrounding area of Sal Jose the Saphira is home to two of the most famous tourmaline mines in the world the paedon area and the Cruzeiro mines what a quaint little Brazilian town many many miles from anyway fact we've traveled along 70 kilometers as a dirt track this is the first time we're speed in a long long time San Jose disappear this little town just sat there of course sapphire precious gem star although there's not been any precious gemstones found in the hills around here that is the name don't ask me why I haven't yet found out but but we have fan it's beautiful tourmaline deposits a couple bringing us blue tourmaline red tourmaline of course rubellite and some fabulous green tourmaline very beautiful countryside very warm and friendly people but the problem is trying to find the gemstones at all altitude they're all up in the hills and bringing them down into the town where the trade is normally on a Friday is a job for a horse and a man we've seen several riders as we've driven along bringing their there with on their horse with a sax across the back with a gemstone rocks hanging off the back of the horses I'll bring them in to the local town they'll get cleaned up they'll get washed and then they'll get traded on Friday because that's the day they need the cash that they can feed the family this is one of the most important mining areas in the world for tourmaline we get indica light from here we get rubellite and we get green tourmaline to the quality of the gemstones amazing the scenery is breathtaking even the houses are painted in all different colors of tourmaline the lengthy drive to the first of the two mines seems to really have taken its toll on Steve for have a drive to get this bike to this man it's in the middle of nowhere it's bumpy I am bruised I'm sure when I take my shirt off I'm bruised black and blue for hours drive through hilly mountainous roads dirt tracks the gaya but the scenery is fantastic let's go and see the mine and see what there are nothing today this is the paedon era mine it's way up high in the hillside there's a railway track along the bottom at which they use to actually get the gemstones out when they finish mining the ventilation is all bought in by these big air tanks and they've been mining here since about 1944 it's a fantastic night never had rubellite out of here indica light they have had some beautiful green tourmaline as well that's every color you can imagine for tourmaline it's a fabulous fabulous mineshaft and one that one of the few that are still producing today inside of Brazil okay okay tell me about this new pocket you've just discovered yeah this is a we found exactly like I said we find the albeit the garnet and the black tourmaline and then inside of those pocket that is some crystals we never know what it is if it is gonna be pink red whatever it is and to be like going to casino isn't it for chewing it you never know and there on you're saying quite often you'll drill through and then if you drill go straight through you know you're into a big pocket yeah this why did we we hope usually when we draw and that when you draw when one goes you take it out it's not and then you make it another draw so the air can so the water goes so you find a pocket you never know what's going to be inside if you put it like this and you get some doubling in your hand it is something that well we don't know what kind and how many kilos are clean it is another your heartbeats like this you know to open and see if I you find really something and we're very happy with this mind we've been fine here lately quantity except it's very difficult to find blue tourmaline we're inside a big pegmatite that was pushed up to the surface of the earth for the volcanic action many many millions years ago it's very very hard rockin date with some hundred and fifty meters below the surface of the earth here and some two hundred meters inside the tunnel and yet when you talk about blue tourmaline they're literally bringing out one or two pieces a week it's incredibly rare and the sizes are normally very very small so to find a 3/4 karat piece we're talking months we're talking a long long time over the last couple years I've only had one piece come out over five carat so you blue tourmaline for mines like this very very rare they've talked about tanzanite being rare you're talking about a different league altogether blue tourmaline hard to find gorgeous to look at great great depth of color very durable gemstone and very very hard and harsh mining conditions okay a lot of your blue tourmaline it has really good clarity I mean a lot of the the blue tumbling on the market recently is heavily included but some comes in your mind seems to be nice and claim what was that is that geological or no the thing is this usually was a lot of tourmaline with inclusion was not so then those Chinese come in the market and they buy everything so everybody that has this material that didn't sell like a ten years ago now they put everything at the market okay usually tourmaline has to be a hundred percent clean so you can heat the Kootenay harvin then goes like six hundred if I have any defect you cannot eat mm-hmm but the bicolor one day pink kind of brown yeah and blue with some white they can be clean but one day red and green no they navigli interested light and never and the we recently bought from you some beautiful bicolor with the green and the pink was actually from this mine yeah Zack from this miner like 100 meters bank there look at 80 meters I don't know exactly and how often do you come across the divide color is it yeah it's not that easy when we find some bucket it is a lot of small pocket it likes it this side of this has this small party here they have another one there they have a lot of small one sometimes we find a big pocket with a lot of low material in a small one like this they have a one look to his specimen the small money than the whole pocket well you never know yes is a that's Las Vegas that's why you enjoy it yeah I suppose a lot of miners in Madagascar and they say that that's the hope and the dream that keeps them going and he they said that they say that they don't earn that much more than if they were farming but at least they've got the dream and the hope that one day they hit the big pocket yeah you see and the main keys in my age this is making me feel very good when I go in a bed I dream I lost my you know I'm not filled to sleep so I began to dream I'm gonna drool in this I'm gonna find a big pocket then makes me feel much better and dreams so you know I keep dreaming excellent yeah as someone who likes to get stuck in state can't resist the chance of picking up a shovel and having a go at mining himself what mine is quite hard it's quite rewarding when you see those little pieces that you get if we just get one piece out of here just a 1/2 carat bicolor tourmaline it'd be worth it but we never know keke okay k who owns a mine tells me that if we get one carat here then that's probably about all we will see don't forget that's a tunnel to get there here don't know that's a blast to break up the bits with a hammer so this is just really the easy bit this is just loading it up into the cart to take it up to the surface where we'll then wash it and see if we found in it what kaykai's Ascenta means because I'm helping at that you'll do it me an extra special deal if we find a piece today but it's been a couple days without a single gemstone so who knows so it's so exciting they're like oh be careful don't let this go and run over the camera run little bit of a inexperience minor action there I thought what I thought was the brake to slow it down actually opens at the front and it's led a lot of it at the front so we're gonna have to put Hill back in mine is not overly happy with me but no I thought the cart was slipping away from me and I thought it was the brake so I pulled it in actually opened everything up onto the track hey it's just going to be later by about half an hour so we've blasted we've chipped we've cracked with happened we've chiselled all day long and this is the final bit there I'm not pushing this up you might look like I'm I'm actually being pulled up by hit this is a real steep incline of about 45 degrees sir trust me I'm not pushing this hit is pulling me up let me get the top we're gonna wash it and take care out in the wine owns this particular my assistant me Steve if we get one carrot out of this one today then we've had a good day that's how rare gemstones are [Music] after a short journey we finally arrived at the Cruzeiro mine which due to the fabulous quality found here has become synonymous with the word rubellite we - Jerris at the Cruzeiro mine very famous marnie day when it comes to beautiful rube lights beautiful tourmaline the word is also very famous in Brazil because it's the name of their old currency it's also a consolation you can see in the night sky down here also name of the cruise ship and their old currency so it has many many meanings but in the terms of gemstones it means two things it means great clarity great quality some of the best you're gonna see in tourmaline from Brazil I depending there miners it yesterday this was going deeper underground we're using the tracks of the trucks to actually along the track to bring out the gemstones here they were looking for the multicolored gemstones if you've ever got a multicolored tourmaline piece of jewelry from us and the clarity is really good and it says Brazil on your certificate the chances are it's come from this mine although the force is a little bit muddy and getting into the mic of a bit of a hassle the qualities is world-class and that is because that when the gemstones were forming there wasn't any earthquakes for thousands of thousands years they really tranquil here in Brazil and that is why that you don't see that many sort of inclusions and cracks and crevices within the gemstone fine quality gems right from this little mine here it was quite nice walking down the tunnel but then we come to this bit and those miners working right down the bottom here there's I've came to about eleven sets of ladders coming up and they don't have to hold the the loose rock up because they've got this little conveyor belt system here to do that but imagine going up and down here every day to get the gemstones and this is the extent that we have to go to because all the easy pickings have gone now they've taken the rubellite from the top of the earth they've taken the easy to get hold of stones and we're going deeper and deeper and there's two problems with that costs more and more because you're having to excavate a lot more rock but also the deeper you get the less you find so again costs are going up on many many gemstones and in particular the route light from this mine it's a little bit of tourmaline here is not of gem quality it's actually breaking up with my fingers as I as I touch it but it's a good indication that just above here we're gonna find more green tourmaline in fact kaykai actually said to me that when you find green there's a chance you'll find greener when you find trace elements of pink it means that the the right chemical elements are in the rock so this chance that'll be other pink around so even though you're finding bits right now that aren't gem quality it doesn't mean that there's a good chance within a meter or two off here if we blast a little bit further today we might find some more gemstones a lot people add something what's the difference between pink tourmaline and rubellite well it depends on what the crystal is like before we start cutting it because I'll sleep with many gemstones and the more you cut the smaller the pieces get the light of the color like tanzanite tanzanite reduces massively as you get smaller pieces same with Ruby and Ruby light so with ruber light as we cut it it will become pink tourmaline in look but we have to think about the crystal when we're cutting it so quite often you'll end up looking at a piece of home again oh it looks more like pink symptom alene but we've called it rubellite and the reason is it is rubellite because it was Ruby like when it came out of the ground you'd only took on a pink appearance as we started to make the crystals smaller as we start to facet the material just been mining for rubellite today and pink tourmaline and tell me if I'm doing this right or wrong they're good more rounded in the water Wow one little piece that oh yeah nice you have - yeah excellent that was thank you very much after leaving the mine Steve had a chance to chat with Glen Lara and Gi a photographer Rob Weldon about why they think cruise era rubellite is such a special gemstone so the Cruzeiro mine what you know about it anybody well for me I knew it years ago when I was able to get some of the rough it's some of the deepest rubellite you can find it's that really deep almost grapey Merlot color yeah of grape it's rich it's deep you have to be careful when you cut it because sometimes it'll darken it too dark for you so sometimes I like the smaller medium sized stones because that's where the color really comes through and you can see the richness and once you like to photograph either a lot an easy stone to photograph or it can be challenging at times as a mineral specimen what's interesting about it is to get the striations in the crystal faces which these minerals have in spades they're just beautifully terminated you want to get it as close as possible to what you're seeing when you hold a crystal in your hand and you turn it and you examine it under different kinds of light really for the photographer that's the challenge to try to synthesize all of those lighting conditions you have a single two-dimensional photograph it's not only difficult mining it's difficult cutting it it's difficult to photograph it and it's difficult to find it so when you get a hold of it get it [Laughter] our journey to Brazil is over along the way we've met many interesting people and visited the most important tourmaline deposits in the world but we've really only scratched the surface of what Brazil has to offer so please join us on our next gemstone adventure

Channel: Gemporia

Views: 17,056

Rating: 4.681818 out of 5

Keywords: Jewellery, Steve Bennett, Genuine Gemstones, Gems TV, Emerald, Sapphire, Birthstones, Gemstone knowledge, Gemology, Geology, Mineralogy, Fake Nothing, Jewelry, Jeweller, GIA, amethyst, imperial topaz, ouro preto, tourmaline, rubellite, indicolite, glenn lehrer, gemporia

Id: gP6MrAJiFHY

Length: 25min 39sec (1539 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 14 2017