Emeralds from Davdar, Xin Jiang, China

Trip Start Jul 29, 2006
1
Trip End Aug 02, 2006


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Wednesday, August 2, 2006

This travelogue presents the gemological expedition lead in August 2006 by Vincent Pardieu (then director of the AIGS Gemological Laboratory) to new emerald mines in Xin Jiang western province of China. This fieldtrip was part of the larger expedition supported by AIGS and Gubelin gemological laboratories with the help of ICA to the Central Asia with purpose to visit ruby, spinel and emerald deposits.

Vincent Pardieu was seconded by Guillaume Soubiraa, a Madagascar based French gemologist, who studied gemology at AIGS Bangkok in 2006.
Read my complete report with photo, videos and Google Earth placemarks:
China: Emeralds on the silk road.

Abstract: The Davdar emerald mining was first reported in the litterature by Dudley Blauwet in Gems and Gemology (Spring 2005, p 56-57) and three stones were studied by Elizabteh P.Quinn at GIA but Dudley Blauwet was not able to visit the deposit.
We Arrived in Xin Jiang by plane from Islamabad (Pakistan), visited Kashgar and took the  Karakoram highway south to Tashkurgan in order to visit the new emerald deposit in Davdar where emeralds were first found in 2000. Until 2005 when the origin of the new material was discloded, Davdar production, mostly illegal, was reported to us to have been traded through Peshawar and Dubai. We were probably the first gemologists to reach these new mines on August 01, 2006. After one full day visiting the mining area, we left China taking the Karakoram highway south to Pakistan through the famous Kunjerab pass (4733 meters altitude) which is the world higherst border crossing. After a short stop in Sost we reached Gilgit late at night.

All the best,
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