page_title: Mining in Brazil
section_title: Gemstones
hierarchical_section_title: Mining in Brazil / Present / Gemstones
caption_attribution_description: Agate from Brazil. (public display, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA) &quot;Agate&quot; is a rockhound/collector term for irregularly- &amp; concentrically-layered masses of microcrystalline quartz. Individual layers consist of translucent or opaque, microcrystalline, fibrous quartz called chalcedony. Impurities in different layers cause variations in color. Many agate masses are simply geodes that have completely filled up with quartz. Common agate colors are clearish-whitish-grayish, brownish-red, and yellowish-brown. Commercial agates that occur in greens and blues and purples are almost always dyed (faked). The whitish, glassy material at the center of this specimen is macrocrystalline quartz.
context_page_description: Mining in Brazil is centered on the extraction of iron, copper, gold, aluminum, manganese, tin, niobium, and nickel. About gemstones, Brazil is the world's largest producer of amethyst, topaz, agate and is a big producer of tourmaline, emerald, aquamarine and garnet.
context_section_description: Brazil is the world's largest producer of agate. Rio Grande do Sul is the largest producer, with local extraction since 1830. There is also extraction in Minas Gerais and Bahia. In aquamarine, Minas Gerias produces the most valuable stones in the world. This gem is also produced in Espírito Santo, Rio Grande do Norte, Ceará, Alagoas and Paraíba. The largest world producer of amethyst is Brazil, in the states of Rio Grande do Sul mainly, and secondarily, in Bahia.  The largest producer of amethyst in Brazil is the city of Ametista do Sul, in Rio Grande do Sul. This stone was very rare and expensive worldwide, until the discovery of large deposits in Brazil, causing its value to drop considerably.   
  Brazil was the largest producer of diamond in the world from 1730 to 1870. Mining first occurred in the Serra da Canastra, Diamantina region, and then, in 1850, in Bahia, even dropping the price of stone worldwide due excess production. Today, Brazil produces close to 1 million carats a year, mainly in the State of Minas Gerais, but also in Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Bahia, Paraná and Roraima. Virtually all states in the country have diamonds.
  Regarding emerald, the largest producers in the world are: Colombia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Madagascar and Brazil. It is produced in the states of Goiás, Bahia and Minas Gerais. In garnet, Brazil is not one of the largest producers, but there is extraction in Minas Gerais, Espírito Santo, Bahia, Paraíba, Ceará, Rondônia and Rio Grande do Norte . In Brazil there are also some jasper in Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso, Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul. Another rare stone to be found in Brazil is opal, but there are deposits in Piauí, Bahia, Ceará and in Rio Grande do Sul. Ruby is also rare in Brazil, being found in Bahia and Santa Catarina. Sapphire is also scarce in Brazil, but can be found in Mato Grosso, Goiás, Santa Catarina and Minas Gerais. In the topaz, Brazil has the most valuable variety in the world, the imperial topaz, only produced in Ouro Preto-MG. In addition, the country is the world's top producer of topaz. It is also among the world's largest producers of tourmaline, in the states of Minas Gerais, Ceará, Goiás and Bahia. Brazil produces the rarest and most expensive variety of tourmaline in the world, Paraíba tourmaline, which, in addition to Paraíba, is only found in three other places in the world: in Brazil (at the state of Rio Grande do Norte) and Africa (at Nigeria and Mozambique). But none of them offers a higher quality stone than São José da Batalha. In turquoise, there is only a small production in Bahia.
caption: Brazilian agate
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