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Gemfields Finds 5,655-Carat Emerald
The mining company has named the gemstone “Inkalamu” in honor of its conservation partners.
Gemfields recovered this 5,655-carat rough emerald that it later named “Inkalamu” from its Kagem mine in Zambia on Oct. 2.
London—Gemfields recovered a 5,655-carat rough emerald from its Kagem mine in Zambia earlier this month, the colored gemstone miner announced Monday.
Geologist Debapriya Rakshit and veteran emerald miner Richard Kapeta discovered the emerald in the eastern part of Kagem’s largest open-pit mine on Oct. 2.
Gemfields said this area of the mine has proven to be “particularly fertile” in recent months, with the Kagem team recovering a number of significant crystals there.
The colored stone miner has dubbed the gem “Inkalamu,” or the Lion Emerald, in honor of the work carried out by conservation partners the Zambian Carnivore Programme and the Niassa Carnivore Project, which work to conserve Africa’s carnivores while also working with the local communities.
Gemfields said it will donate 10 percent of the proceeds of the sale of Inkalamu to the two organizations.
The giant gemstone, described as having “remarkable clarity and a perfectly balanced golden green hue,” will be included in its emerald auction next month in Singapore.
The company said in a statement that it was difficult to estimate how much Inkalamu will ultimately sell for, as well as how many individual gems will be cut from the rough stone, noting only that it expects “a number of large, fine-quality emeralds to be borne of the Inkalamu crystal.”
But the stone has been tagged with Gübelin Gem Lab’s “Provenance Proof” nanotechnology, in which nano-sized particles encoded with the mine of origin will allow for proof of origin in the future.
Gemfields, which only gives names to the rarest rough gemstones, last named an emerald in 2010 when it unveiled the “Insofu,” or “elephant,” emerald.
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