Jegdalek ruby deposit, Surobi District, Kabul, Afghanistan
The Jegdalek ruby deposit, named after a tributary of the Kabul River, is situated in the East Hindu Kush Mountains, 60 km east of Kabul. It is in the southern part of the Nuristan central massif.Jegdalek, the main deposit, occurs within gneiss-marble strata, which extend for 1.5 km with a total thickness of 100 to 350 m. Marbles, which composition is mainly calcitic with variable dolomitic contents, form more than a half of the sequence with thicknesses of individual layers of 1 to 30 m.
Ruby accompanied by pink spinel, fuchsite, clinohumite, pargasite, diopside, chlorite and white clay, occurs in conformable thin veins and lenses 1 to 5 cm thick, within the marbles.
Ruby is irregularly distributed in pocket-like accumulations of poorly crystallized, translucent and fractured crystals up to 2 cm long. Small crystals and local areas of large crystals are transparent and free of fractures. The colour is pink, red to deep red, and cherry, sometimes with a violet tint.
Ref: E.Ya. Kievlenko, Geology of gems, 2003, p.54
Gemstone List
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