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GeneralNew find of transparent Diaspore from Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan

23rd Oct 2020 09:43 UTCIan Nicastro OP

I wanted to request that a locality be created for the new find of Diaspore near the village of Ragha, Goshta District, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan.

https://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/summer-2020-gemnews-purplish-pink-diaspore-reportedly-from-afghanistan published in the Summer 2020 issue of GIA's Gems & Gemology Journal that came out yesterday.

Diaspore from this deposit is purplish pink in color and some stones exhibit a mild color shift between purple and pink in different lighting. Ilyas Safi (Miwand Safi Gems & Minerals), a dealer based in Peshawar, has provided additional information about the discovery as he has visited the deposit in person. Ilyas mentioned that in February 2020, children of shepherds playing in the mountainous Goshta district of Nangarhar Province found purplish pink stones and took them to the village of Ragha, and shortly thereafter a villager set out to find the source and located the deposit on February 27. Soon word of this discovery attracted the attention of additional miners in the area and rough was brought to Peshawar, where it was first identified as Diaspore by a local lab in March 2020, according to Ilyas. I was informed by my friend Salman Khan (ARSAA Gems & Minerals), a dealer based in Peshawar, that a man named Dr. Hanif Ur Rehman who was already a partner in several hydrogrossular and nephrite mines that operate in Goshta, was involved in expanding early mining operations at the Diaspore deposit. Ilyas who is now a partner in the current diaspore mining operations mentioned that a team of around 22 miners work the deposit and that transparent fragments of rough up to 97 grams in size have been recovered. No terminated crystals appear to have been produced from this find yet, or else are being broken up in the mining process. There is no word on the exact geology of the deposit or the host rock, but the materially can be identified as distinct from Turkish and Burmese Diaspore when analyzed for levels of chromium and vanadium.

I also wanted to request that the Goshta District, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, be listed as producing Hydrogrossular and Nephrite as both Ilyas and my friend Salman Khan mentioned that Goshta is locally known for producing those commodities.

23rd Oct 2020 11:44 UTCUwe Kolitsch Manager

Hydrogrossular

Highly unlikely - probably only a normal grossular. How was it identified?

You could add the new locality yourself, but it's ok if you want to have a manager do it.

23rd Oct 2020 13:21 UTCJosé Zendrera

Added Goshta District: https://www.mindat.org/loc-404173.html

23rd Oct 2020 14:07 UTCUwe Kolitsch Manager

Fixed: https://www.mindat.org/loc-404179.html

Jo´se: please note how I have modified your original entry (locality and formatting of ref.).

Neither grossular or hydrogrossular is not mentioned in the article, so I have deleted them.

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To cite: Ralph, J., Von Bargen, D., Martynov, P., Zhang, J., Que, X., Prabhu, A., Morrison, S. M., Li, W., Chen, W., & Ma, X. (2025). Mindat.org: The open access mineralogy database to accelerate data-intensive geoscience research. American Mineralogist, 110(6), 833–844. doi:10.2138/am-2024-9486.
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