Been doing a bit of reading, since I recently got some small Gravelotte emeralds, likely from the Cobra pit, and have book-ends cut from emerald bearing biotite schist with associated quartz. It looks like there has been some effort to restart the mine, with an emerald sale in 2024 – Check out the links below:
Emerald sale
Current owners?
Going through Cairncross’s “minerals of South Africa” and a quick googlefu search, apparently this is the world’s oldest (non-alluvial) emerald mine, started in 1927 by “the Emerald mining company” – A super creative name – and was last active in the Cobra pit (down to 100m), plus some underground workings. Although the mine produced a fair amount of facet rough, it seems specimens were pretty uncommon, and nothing like the size seen overseas. Having some experience with the biotite schist matrix though, I can say picking them out by hand is at least relatively easy.
I haven’t as of yet seen any of the associated minerals – Apparently apatite, molybedenite and pyrite (other than quartz), would be really nice to find an emerald-pyrite association on matrix!
The references go on to discuss beryl, of which yes, emerald is a variety, but is much less interesting. I remember seeing beryl in the face at the Noumas (blesberg) mine almost up to a meter in length – Totally embedded in feldspar and certainly not gem grade!
Anyways. Will be fun to watch Gravelotte and see if they do end up opening up a new pit!
Here’s the locality on Mindat!
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