Moonstones mined and made into jewellery in Sri Lanka
Gem miners working in one of the hundreds of small operations round Ratnapura They produce a variety of stones in tough conditions relying on digging out the clay soil and washing it away to reveal the gem stones Some mines are more than 40ft deep and have tunnels dug horizontally too Tourists are often invited to see them and buy jewellery and stones including the favourite corn flower blue sapphire the yellow and star sapphires the honey yellow cat s eye the star ruby the rare alexandrite amethysts garnets as well as semi precious stones like quartz of many different colours The mines are worked as village enterprises a local economy which impacts on the national economy The industry is centred on the Ratnapura region of Sri Lanka
Size: 5330px × 3998px
Photo credit: © June Keeble/VisualGems / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: alexandrite, amethyst, cat, danger, dig, economy, eye, facet, gem, jewellery, lanka, miner, mud, necklace, pendant, purchase, quartz, rare, ratnapura, ruby, sale, sapphire, sell, shopping, sparkle, sri, star, stone, stones, topaz, tourism, tourist, valuable, village, visit, water, work, worker
