MINERALIZATION


The emeralds occur within small veins that fill fractures in the host rock.  The host rocks are metamorphosed limestones, calcareous slates, phyllites, and micaceous schist of Silurian-Devonian age. The veins consist mainly of quarzt-albite, apparently related to a local igneous intrusive rock described as a quartz-feldspar porphyry. The emeralds are believed to be of hydrothermal origin and resulted from a chemical reaction between solutions travelling along the fractures and the enclosing host rocks.