Unlike many gemstone claims Tanzanite’s rarity is assured, heralding from only one source on the face of the Earth: the Merelani Hills in northern Tanzania.

The United Republic of Tanzania is situated in Eastern Africa, bordering the Indian Ocean, between Kenya and Mozambique. The Merelani mining area is situated in the Simanjiro district of Tanzania, 70km south east of Arusha and the world famous gem deposits of the Umba Valley. This area is home to Mount Kilimanjaro the highest point in Africa. Tanzania is a land of wide-open spaces and magnificent wildlife, dwelling in the infamous Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater national parks that cover nearly a quarter of Africa’s landmass.

The Orogenic collisions resulted in forcing up deep sedimentary (marine) rock deposits, laid down over 800 million years ago. As a result of being thrust up and against each other, these sedimentary rocks were subsequently re-exposed to extreme heat and pressure becoming marble and graphite metamorphic material. Metamorphic materials, from Greek ‘Meta’ to ‘Change,’ and ‘Morph ‘to ‘Form,’ are the changes in form of pre-existing rock types into another beneath the Earth's surface.

These schists were subsequently re-exposed to more extreme heat and pressure. Quartz veins formed within the margins of these folds, and hot vanadium-rich hydrothermal liquids seeped into the spaces at the edges and hinges of the folds resulting in the development of Tanzanite crystals.