Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais, Brazil: the Eastern Brazilian Pegmatite Province, its 11 districts, elbaite and beryl, and the Sapucaia pegmatite, type locality of 8 phosphates.
Minas Gerais, Brazil, holds more than 90% of the Eastern Brazilian Pegmatite Province, about 150,000 km2 of pegmatites dated about 630 to 490 Ma. Handbook sheets name Minas Gerais for elbaite tourmaline, beryl and spodumene, and the Sapucaia pegmatite in Minas Gerais is the type locality of eight phosphate minerals, including frondelite and tavorite.
In short
- A state, not a mine. Minas Gerais is a Brazilian state. For pegmatite minerals the useful unit is the Eastern Brazilian Pegmatite Province: about 150,000 km2 from Bahia to Rio de Janeiro, with more than 90% of its area in eastern Minas Gerais, in the Araçuaí orogen (Pedrosa-Soares, Chaves, Scholz and Dias, Estudos Geológicos 32, 2022).
- Eleven districts. The same guide tabulates 11 pegmatite districts, after Pedrosa-Soares et al. (2011), with single ages from c. 497 Ma (Pedra Azul) to c. 582 Ma (Conselheiro Pena) and a range of c. 650–500 Ma for Santa Maria de Itabira. Their main resources range from aquamarine and topaz to spodumene, gem tourmaline, alexandrite and rare phosphates.
- Which tourmaline. The Handbook of Mineralogy elbaite sheet names the Araçuaí–Itinga–Salinas district and the Itatiaia district, Governador Valadares. The schorl sheet names Mendes Pimentel. The beryl sheet names large districts around Teófilo Otoni, Governador Valadares, Conselheiro Pena and Itabira.
- Sapucaia, eight type-locality phosphates. The guide lists arrojadite-(PbFe), barbosalite, faheyite, frondelite, lipscombite, moraesite, ruifrancoite and tavorite. Checked against the September 2026 IMA-CNMNC Master List, all eight give Brazil as the country. Six are grandfathered names (1949–1962) and two are IMA 2005 approvals.
- Worked lithium grade. Ideal spodumene, LiAlSi2O6, is 8.03% Li2O. The guide gives the CBL mine pegmatites at Araçuaí an average of 23% spodumene, which works out at 1.85% Li2O in the rock if all of it were ideal spodumene. Real spodumene carries less, so treat that as a ceiling.
| District | Age (Ma) | Main mineral resources and collection minerals (abridged) | Pegmatite type | Parent granites |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pedra Azul | c. 497 | Aquamarine, topaz, quartz | Residual, rare element; very small to small | G5 |
| Padre Paraíso | c. 519 | Aquamarine, topaz, quartz, goshenite | Residual, rare element; very small to small | G5 granite and charnockite |
| Araçuaí | 525–500 | Spodumene; gem tourmaline, beryl and quartz; schorl, montebrasite, petalite, cassiterite, columbite-tantalite | Residual, rare element; very large to very small | G4 |
| Ataléia | c. 519 | Aquamarine | Residual, rare element; very small to small | G5 |
| São José da Safira | c. 535 | Feldspar, tourmaline, beryl, muscovite, aquamarine, heliodor, bertrandite, microlite | Residual, rare element to muscovite; very large to medium | G4 |
| Conselheiro Pena | c. 582 | Gem tourmaline, beryl and quartz; triphylite and rare phosphates; kunzite | Residual, rare element; very large to medium | G2 |
| Malacacheta | c. 535 | Alexandrite, chrysoberyl, muscovite, beryl | Residual pegmatites and hydrothermal systems | G4 |
| Santa Maria de Itabira | c. 650–500 | Emerald, alexandrite, aquamarine, amazonite | Hydrothermal systems and anatectic pegmatites | — (host: ultramafic schist, iron formation, migmatite) |
| Caratinga | c. 575 | Kaolin, corundum, beryl | Anatectic, abyssal | — (host: migmatitic paragneiss) |
| Espera Feliz | c. 500 | Aquamarine, topaz, quartz | Residual, rare element; very small to small | G5 |
| Espírito Santo | 575–490 | Kaolin, quartz; aquamarine, topaz | Mainly anatectic; very small to small residual bodies | G5 (and migmatitic paragneiss host) |
Why Minas Gerais is not one locality
The province. The Eastern Brazilian Pegmatite Province covers about 150,000 km2, from Bahia to Rio de Janeiro states. The PEG2009 field-trip guide by Pedrosa-Soares and co-authors puts more than 90% of it in eastern Minas Gerais, in the Araçuaí orogen. The granites there are grouped into five supersuites, G1 to G5: G1 pre-collisional (630–585 Ma), G2 syn-collisional (585–560 Ma), G3 late to post-collisional (545–520 Ma), G4 and G5 post-collisional (535–490 Ma). The pegmatites crystallised from about 630 to 490 Ma and are anatectic or residual.
Other Minas Gerais localities on the sheets. Handbook Distribution fields also name places in the state that are not among the guide’s 11 districts. Hematite: Mesa Redonda and Congonhas do Campo (large crystals), Itabira, and Miguel Burnier near Ouro Preto. Topaz: Ouro Preto and near Virgem da Lapa. The Morro Velho gold mine at Nova Lima appears on the dolomite, fluorapatite, pyrrhotite and siderite sheets. A label reading only “Minas Gerais” can mean any of these.
History, in the guide’s words. Pegmatite gems became officially known in the late 17th century, when green tourmalines were found in central-northeastern Minas Gerais by Fernão Dias Paes Leme. Pegmatites became important mineral deposits during and after the Second World War, for mica, beryl and quartz. Since the 1990s the guide describes a decline, and in the 2000s a new activity, quarrying pegmatite as dimension stone. Other localities are on the localities index.
Which tourmaline, which beryl: what the sheets name
Read from the sheets. Method: a script reads the Distribution field (from Distribution: to the next Name:) of each sheet named here, as pdftotext -layout text, strips diacritics, expands ligatures, joins line breaks and matches case-insensitively. Pegmatite species whose sheets name Minas Gerais places include:
- Elbaite (H 7, D 2.90–3.10): the Araçuaí–Itinga–Salinas district and the Itatiaia district, Governador Valadares.
- Schorl (H 7, D 3.18–3.22, black): Mendes Pimentel (spelled Pimental on the sheet). The guide describes metre-sized schorl aggregates at the Água Santa mine, Coronel Murta.
- Beryl (H 7.5–8): large districts around Teófilo Otoni, Governador Valadares, Conselheiro Pena and Itabira.
- Chrysoberyl (H 8.5, D 3.75): Faria Lemos, Santa Luzia de Carangola and Americana, Teófilo Otoni.
- Spodumene (H 6.5–7): the Urupuca mine, Itambacuri (Itambacari on the sheet), and Resplendor.
- Brazilianite (H 5.5, D 2.98): Córrego Frio and nearby pegmatites, Divino das Laranjeiras, near Linópolis, and São Geraldo do Baixio.
- Bertrandite: large crystals at the Golconda mine, near Governador Valadares.
What this means for a “tourmaline” label. Tourmaline is a group name. The sheets point coloured Minas Gerais pegmatite tourmaline to elbaite and black to schorl, but a single crystal needs an analysis to name; see the live tourmaline group page and how to tell if tourmaline is real. The species index has the rest.
Sapucaia: eight type-locality phosphates, checked
Where it is. The guide puts the Sapucaia (or Proberil) pegmatite 16 km from Galiléia; the Handbook sheets put it about 50 km east-southeast of Governador Valadares. It is a lithium-rich, well-zoned body with spodumene and triphylite. Alteration of triphylite produced many secondary phosphates. Mining began early in the 20th century, mainly during the Second World War for industrial beryl and muscovite.
The eight. The guide names Sapucaia as type locality for arrojadite-(PbFe), barbosalite, faheyite, frondelite, lipscombite, moraesite, ruifrancoite and tavorite. A script read each name’s row on the September 2026 IMA list: all eight give Brazil as the country. Six are grandfathered: frondelite (1949), faheyite (1953), moraesite (1953), barbosalite (1954), tavorite (1955) and lipscombite (1962). Arrojadite-(PbFe) is IMA 2005-056 and ruifrancoite IMA 2005-061a.
Against the Handbook. Six of the eight have sheets, and all six name the Sapucaia pegmatite mine in their Distribution field. No sheet could be fetched for arrojadite-(PbFe) or ruifrancoite (the URLs return no PDF). The guide also lists variscite, saleeite, phosphuranylite, vivianite, eosphorite and others at Sapucaia; the variscite, triphylite, eosphorite and hureaulite sheets name it too. See what is a type locality.
Worked numbers: lithium and beryllium
Spodumene. On standard atomic weights LiAlSi2O6 has a formula mass of 186.09 and is 3.73% lithium, or 8.03% Li2O. The guide describes the CBL (Cachoeira) mine pegmatites, about 18 km east of Araçuaí, as perthitic microcline, spodumene (on average 23%), albite, quartz and muscovite, together more than 95% of the body. At 23% ideal spodumene the rock would be 1.85% Li2O. The guide gives no assay, so that figure is an upper bound on the stated mode, not a grade.
Beryl and chrysoberyl. Beryl, Be3Al2Si6O18, is 5.03% beryllium by mass, or 13.96% BeO, as on the live beryl page. Chrysoberyl, BeAl2O4, is 7.10% Be, or 19.70% BeO. Chrysoberyl and beryl are both on the Malacacheta district row in the table above.
Hardness as a sorting tool. Of the pegmatite species above, chrysoberyl (8.5) and beryl (7.5–8) scratch quartz; elbaite and schorl (7) match it; spodumene (6.5–7) and brazilianite (5.5) are at or below it. Quartz itself is quartz; for the tourmaline question, see is tourmaline a quartz.
Reading a Minas Gerais label
State, district, pegmatite. A useful label names the pegmatite or mine, the municipality and the state: for example Sapucaia pegmatite, Galiléia, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The guide’s districts (Araçuaí, Conselheiro Pena, São José da Safira and the rest) add the geological context. Governador Valadares and Teófilo Otoni appear on many sheets as reference towns, so they do not by themselves identify a pegmatite.
What we do not say. No source we fetched gives current mining status for individual pegmatites; the guide describes conditions around 2009. This page says nothing about access or collecting. For how to record provenance, see how to label and catalogue a mineral collection. Nothing here is offered for sale; the wanted list is the only commercial route.