corundum, Greenland.12, gems

Gübelin describes the ruby occurrences of the Fiskenæsset (now Qeqertarsuatsiaat) area of West Greenland, where ruby and pink corundum occur within the Archean Fiskenæsset complex. The article places the rubies in their mineralogical and geological setting and discusses the associated minerals of this unusual assemblage. Later geological work confirms that the district contains numerous ruby–sapphirine occurrences, commonly associated with ultramafic rocks near contacts between anorthosite and amphibolite, with associated minerals including sapphirine, kornerupine, gedrite, enstatite, cordierite, spinel, pargasite, and phlogopite. Gübelin’s 1979 article is one of the early gemological accounts of the Greenland ruby deposits, which had been discovered in 1966 and were attracting commercial exploration during the 1970s.