Expressing Full Knowledge of Trapiche Emeralds

By Ron Ringsrud

And about her courts were seen

Liveried angels robed in green

Wearing, by St. Patrick's bounty,

Emeralds big as half the county.

- Walter Savage Landor

Colombian trapiche emeralds have intrigued connoisseurs and collectors from all over the world. Geochemists and geologists look at trapiches and see pure mystery: "How", they ask, "did these stones form in nature?". Like the star sapphire, the trapiche crystal's hexagonal nature is made evident by the six-rayed pattern that appears on every well cut cabochon. The oft-appearing hexagon in the center of a transparent emerald trapiche only adds to the allure, drawing in the intellect as well as the senses to marvel at its formation.

The word trapiche was originally used to describe the heavy gears the Spaniards used to crush sugar cane. In the new world, the Conquistadors called these unusual emeralds trapiches because they reminded them of these gears. Even today, in the settlements very close to the emerald mine of Yacopí in Boyacá, Colombia, a pair of these antique gears is connected to a long pole, ready to be yoked to a mule and to grind the cane brought in from the surrounding green hills.

Emerald aficionados sooner or later find themselves seeking a well-formed trapiche for their collection. Once having acquired such a piece, in moments of repose and wonder, the gem gets pulled out of it's paper and scrutinized; the color and texture of the very slightly bluish-green cabochon fills and satisfies the senses while the mathematical perfection of the six rays and the central hexagon alert the intellect to appreciate Nature's design.

Of all the sciences, gemology lends itself to involve much more than just the usual analytic, deconstructive and intellectual phases that science concerns itself with. While science avoids subjectivity and aesthetics, gemology's object of study, the gem, is nothing less than a thing of beauty, allure, timelessness, rarity, uniqueness, wholeness, perfection of color, and fineness: all immeasurables - all beyond the realm of science. Many of the world's best gemologists know this to be true and some of them are able to use that to their advantage.

One such scientist is Eduard E. Gubelin, a world-renowned gemologist who habitually goes beyond the scientific boundaries to wax poetic when talking about the color or internal features of a gemstone.

Gubelin's contribution to the science of gemology is broad and undisputed. Also, his contribution to the subjective aspects of gemology is recorded in the numerous uniquely descriptive and poetic phrases that adorn both his published papers as well as his laboratory certificates. While appreciation for his objective/subjective style of gemology is universal, the gemological institutes of the world do not teach the art or poetry of Gubelin's approach, they only teach the science - for this sensitive and delicate subjectivity cannot be taught; it is only cultivated and developed by seeing, in the lifetime of one's career, thousands of gems, rare and unique like the trapiche, whose beauty and allure touch one so deeply that it inspires the poet inside to express in words the immeasurable.

Two other gemologists who are respected throughout the world, Richard T. Liddicoat and Robert Crowningshield, have seen so many rare and unique gems in their careers that the experience has permeated their beings and created personalities so rare and true that they are like gems themselves.

From his book The Internal World of Gemstones (Zurich, 1979), Doctor Gubelin describes the inclusion features of emeralds in poetic detail:

The saturated green of a crystal clear green mountain lake is the image of the most beautiful emeralds. Such a peaceful mountain lake magnetizes our gaze into its depths. As we sink into it we attain a world where, in the shimmer of a distant greenish light, fronds of weed cast shadows, rigid growths stretch their limbs like chandeliers... This green landscape has long been familiar to jewellers as 'garden' and fine gardens with delicate ornamental plants are highly prized.

The same man who wrote those words is also skilled in taking spectrographic readings from minute inclusions deep within a gemstone: that is testimony to the breadth of Gubelin's gemologic talent. As a gemologist myself, my experience with trapiche emeralds has caused me to seek all available knowledge that pertains to this alluring stone. The scientific descriptions and theories of formation of the trapiche are sustenance to one's intellect and are described below in this paper.

But the heart must find sustenance as well and for knowledge to be complete the intellect must be transcended and the poetic sensiblilties must be brought to bear in this study. Therefore I have enlisted the efforts of two poets, an American and a Colombian, to appreciate deeply the form, color and attraction of trapiche emeralds (common and world class) and to then write about the experience. The poets were asked to help explain how the trapiches were formed.

The two poets are Nancy Berg of Santa Monica, California, winner of the National Endowment of the Arts 1992 Poetry Fellowship as well as a writing Fellowship from Stanford University. She is currently chairperson of the California Poets in the Schools program. From Bogotá, Colombia the poet and writer Sergio Alvarez whose book, Poemas de Amor y Desamor has been recently published. His short stories have won national contests and have appeared in Dell Comic Books as well as Colombian television dramas and comedies.

The following viewpoint from geology and geochemistry was acquired from geologist Terry Ottoway of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada. Her theories on the formation of emeralds in the mining regions of Colombia take advantage of very recent geochemical analyses of samples taken from the mines. This work was published in it's complete form in Nature (Vol. 369 No. 6481, 16 June 1994).

- World emerald deposits are found in association with igneous host rocks whereas Colombian emerald deposits occur in organic-rich black shales, and their origin in the absence of igneous activity has been a persistent enigma. Recent evidence from Colombia indicates that hydrothermal brines transported evaporitic sulphate to structurally favorable sites, where it was thermochemically reduced. The sulphur generated in this process reacted with organic matter in the shales to release trapped chromium, vanadium and beryllium, which in turn enabled emerald formation.

Emerald bearing veins branch out from chemically altered zones of host shale called 'cenizero' (ash in Spanish) while the trapiche emeralds are found in the peripheral cenizero. The formation of the characteristic emerald core with six radiating emerald arms of the trapiches may suggest a change in the crystallization rate; (either from fast to slow or vice-versa), due perhaps to depletion of beryl atoms during formation.

What follows are two poems that have been inspired by the subjective experience of gazing into several fine trapiche emeralds. Rather than simply reading on, the author suggests changing speeds here in order to enter the poetic mood.

How the Star got into the Emerald

by Nancy Berg

Raw music was her gift

Beauty like the ache of language

A green twice as true

as all grassland swirls

stretched among sea

on her cloud-draped planet

He swore to make her the eye of God

Ezekiel's wheel

queen of the night in this arc of space

She says: I a stone and you a star

He says: I a glint and you a focus

She says: Stars so rarely enter us

She is stillness;

he wrenches a hole in the sky

Here this crystalline iris, open

Here the blaze as he falls to his life

Aparición

by Sergio Alvarez

Estallo hacia dentro I explode inwardly

como un puño verde like a round green fist

buscando su ilusión seeking his vision

y destrozando and destroying

el alma negro de la noche the black web of the night

apretando la luz squeezing with my might

y alumbrando and bringing green light

estallo I explode

hacia dentro inwardly

aprendiendo que vivir remembering that to live

es soñar is to dream

fundirse to forge oneself

extasiarse find bliss

y un instante despues and one instant later

cristalizarse to crystallize

In the first poem I envision a star fallen in love with an emerald greener than the planet it resides on. The second poem brings images of masculine gods squeezing green light in their dirty fists, leaving the dark carbon lines of the trapiche's star.

It is obvious in the scientific explanation as well as the poems that the authors have chosen words carefully that convey much meaning. "A green twice as true as all grassland swirls" is certainly no less heavy with meaning as "depletion of beryl atoms during formation".

To believe these explanations of the formation of the trapiche, one must abandon modern objectivity and invoke a shaman-like subjectivity - a subjectivity like the Navajo one that portrays the earth moving on the back of a turtle. Those minds that can witness subjective viewpoints as well as the strict objective are truly rare.

Validity depends only on how the explanation fits into our culture's current paradigm. In another place or another time the poet's vision might be the only explanation for the formation of the trapiche and the scientific one would be non-existent or perhaps studied in solitude by rebellious outcasts.

In the conclusion of his essay 'On the Sense of Beauty in Natural Sciences' Werner Heisenberg makes it clear that even in the 'hard' science of physics there is a place for subjectivity; indeed it is the subjectivity that is sensitive to discovering Truth:

"Certainly, rational thought and precise measurement belong to the work of the natural scientist just as a hammer and chisel belong to the sculptor. But in both cases they are instruments and not the inspiration". Bay area poet and writer Susan Griffin (Eros in My Life 1996) feels that in modern society the status of poets should not be inferior to the status of scientists. Poetic metaphor is just as important a way of seeing reality as scientific metaphor. "You could say that in a certain sense poetic metaphor is more precise than seientific metaphor because poetic metaphor includes the mysterious. And it is often more real too because so often you, the reader, can see the poet seeing. Heisenberg's Principle, a late development in science was early in poetry." (from Poetry Flash Apr.-May 1996 'Twice Beautiful').

The immeasurable qualities of a gem: beauty, allure and timelessness, have been shown to require something more than just standard gemology to validate them. Poetry is offered as a means to go beyond the boundaries of objectivity and approach that timelessness. Gemologists who have mastered their professions are encouraged to turn their attention to poetry for a new level of validation and appreciation of gems.

The Gemological Institute of America maintains a rightful place in their course material for the romance and lore of colored stones. Perhaps in the future the standard gemological laboratory will have not only gemologists creating certificates for the validation of the objective qualities of a gem (R.I., Specific Gravity etc.) but also have poets on hand for validating the subjective aspects as well.

From Stones in the Sky

by Pablo Neruda

When everything was high,

height,

height,

the emerald cold waited there,

the emerald stare:

it was an eye:

it watched

and was the center of the sky,

center of empty space:

the emerald

watched:

unique, hard, immensely green

as if it were an eye

of the ocean,

fixed stare of water,

drop of God,

victory of the cold

green tower.

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REFERENCES

Gubelin E.J., Koivula T.I (1986) Photoatlas of Inclusions in Gemstones, ABC Edition, Zurich.

Webster R. (1983) Gems: Their Sources, Descriptions and Identification, 4th ed. Revised by B. ~ Anderson, Butterworth and Co., London.

Barriga Villaba. en Esmeraldas de Colombia, Banco de la Republica, Bogota, Colombia.

Sinkankas J. (1981) Emerald and Other Beryls. Chilton Book Co., Radnor, PA.

Rader, Melvin M. Ed. (1935) A Modern Book of Esthetics, Henry Holt & Co., New York

Subriamanian, A.V., (1988) The Aesthetics of Wonder, Motilal Banarsidass, New Delhi

Osborne, Harold, (1968) Aesthetics in the Modern World, Weybright and Talley, New York