"Our team (left to right: Vincent Pardieu, Flavie Isatelle and Lou Pierre Bryl) leaving the Geological Survey of Tanzania in Dodoma: It is all the time useful to get some good maps and publication before to visit gem mining areas"
Photo: A. Y. Msellem / GIA Laboratory Bangkok, 2009

We then left to visit Mpwapwa and the Winza ruby and sapphire mines. I visited already Winza with Jean Baptiste Senoble in April 2008 and we were then the first gemologists to visit this unique deposit.

(For more information about Winza, please visit our Winza expedition report and for more information about the gemology of these interesting rubies and sapphires, please read the complete article published in Gems and Gemology about Winza)

It was then the end of the rainy season and more than 5000 miners were working there washing the gem rich ground for rubies and sapphires and digging the hard rock underneath to get blue and pink sapphires.

During that new visit we found that around 500 miners were still working there. We could visit the mining area and collect some interesting samples. An update about ruby and sapphire mining in Winza will be soon published by the GIA Laboratory Bangkok after my return in Thailand. I will keep you informed.

"Geologist and gemologist Flavie Isatelle returning to the surface after a visit underground in Winza"
Photo: V. Pardieu / GIA Laboratory Bangkok, 2009

After our visit to Winza we focused on visiting the ruby and spinel deposits in the Morogoro region. First we visited the ruby deposits located in the Matombo district of the Uluguru Mountains in the west of Morogoro. We visited the different mining area near the Mwaraze and Ngongolo villages, I visited already in 2005 (see our Tanzania 2005 expedition report), and which were very active during the 1980's up to the beginning of the 1990's producing rubies.

After this visit we continued to the Mahenge where we visited the spinels deposits near Ipanko, Mbarabanga and Kituti. It was interesting to see the evolution of gem mining at Ipanko after our visits in 2005 and 2007. Spinel mining stopped at Ipanko few days after our visit in 2007 and started again in April 2009 after a controversy regarding the mining rights. Ipanko is now again producing beautiful red spinels and is now the most active gem mining area in Tanzania after Merelani with nearly 1,000 miners.

Besides Ipanko we also spent some time continuing the visits I did in 2005 and 2007 of the numerous ruby deposits near Lukande, Mayote, Chipa, Gombe, Ibogoma, Nbangayao, Kitonga, Kitwaro and Kisewe. Some of these areas were reported to have produce during the 1980's and 90's some very fine and large marble type rubies and they remain very poorly known.

"Mahenge Spinel Crystal"

This rough crystal we saw at the mines was weighting nearly 100 grams, this is nothing compared to a 54kg rough spinel but this can give an idea about what we speak about...
Photo: V. Pardieu / GIA Laboratory Bangkok, 2009

After that visit we drove to the north of the country to Tanga and the Umba valley. Tanga is a special place for me as in 2005 I spent there some of the hardest days of my life when I was suffering from malaria.

This time our visit was more pleasant: We visited first the red zircon deposit at Mwakijembe then we visited sapphire, ruby, tsavorite, rhodolite, almandine and malaya garnet mines along the Umba river near Kigwasi and Kalalani. Then on our way back we turn our interest to tourmaline mines at Ngombeni and in the Usambara Mountains.

"A Massai trader present us his treasure: A pair of blue and orange Umba sapphires"
Photo: V. Pardieu / GIA Laboratory Bangkok, 2009

After that visit we returned to Arusha in order to do the export process for our reference samples collected in the field on site while visiting mines.

It is also for me the time to spend some more cozy times participating to the 31st IGC (International Gemological Conference) which will start on Oct 9th and will finish on Oct 14th.

"The 31th International Gemological Conference, Arusha, Tanzania, 2009"

The IGC conference means also that it will be time for my traveling companions: Lou Pierre Bryl and Flavie Isatelle to continue their own travelings respectively to Poland and Madagascar.

It was very nice to have them with me during that expedition as they were very helpful motivated to visit Tanzanian gem mining areas. I wish them all the best.

On my side after the end of the conference I will continue to Kenya with new travel companions: Dr. Gaston Giuliani and Dr. Daniel Ohnenstetter from Nancy University, France and Dr. Stephanos Karempelas from the Gubelin Gem Lab in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Our focus will be on visiting ruby and tsavorite deposits around Voi in Southern Kenya.

All the best,

"Winza rubies"
A group of Winza ruby and sapphire crystal specimen collected by the author while visiting the Winza gem mining area in 2008 associated with two beautiful faceted rubies seen in Paris.
Stones courtesy: Gübelin Gem Lab / Van Cleef and Arpels / Piat / Swala Gem Traders, Photo: V. Pardieu, 2008

From April 15 to 22, 2008, with the support of our Tanzanian friends and from the Tanzanian local authorities we succeeded to reach the new mining area where we stayed 3 days at 2 nights in order to witness and document the mining activity. A complete report about our field expedition is currently available on this website:

Now a complete field trip report is available on this website at the following link:

The Winza ruby and Sapphire mining area,
Mpwapwa district, Dodoma province, Tanzania

"Winza landscape"
A view over the Winza ruby washing and mining area on the Mtindiri riverbanks and on the Mangalisa mountains.
Photo: V. Pardieu / Gübelin Gem Lab, 2008

About 2 weeks after the author and Jean Baptiste Senoble visit of the Winza mining area, in May 2008, GIA gemologists: James E. Shigley and Brendan M. Laurs also succeded to visit Winza in order to document the location, the geology, and the mining of the new ruby and sapphire deposit. They were accompanied by gem dealer Dimitri Mantheakis (Ruvu Gemstone Mining Ltd., Dar es Salaam ), who arranged the logistics and helped them to obtain the necessary permissions for that visit, and by several government officials for their security.

After these two expeditions, the Gübelin Gem Lab, the GIA and other researchers decided to collaborate to produce a common article about " Rubies and Sapphires from Winza, Central Tanzania " by Schwarz D, Saul J.M., Schmetzer K., Laurs B.M., Giuliani G., Klemm L., Malsy A.-K, Erel E., Hauzenberger C., Du Toit G., Fallick A.E., Ohnenstetter D. and Pardieu V. in Gems & Gemology, Vol. 44, No. 4, Winter 2008, pp. 322-347.

Besides the article, some addtional photos taken during the 2 expeditions by the Gübelin Gem Lab and GIA and some additional inclusion photos of Winza gems are also available on G&G Data Depository on GIA website.

"Abdul M'Sellem and a winza sapphire specimen"
A special thanks to our friend Abdul M'Sellem, an Arusha based Tanzanian gem broker, who was the first to inform the author about the new ruby deposit in Winza at the end of November 2007. Thanks to his support, we were able to have a very succesful expedition in April 2008 and to be the first gemologists to visit that area.
Photo: V. Pardieu / Gübelin Gem Lab, 2008

Visiting Winza and studying Winza rubies and sapphire was a great gemological adventure for me, it was probably one of the best things I will remember about my two years working as a gemologist specialized on Origin determination of gemstones at the Gübelin Gem Lab in Lucerne, Switzerland. We had the occasion then to do some great team work under the direction of Dietmar Schwarz in order to provide rapidly to the gemological community a complete article published in GIA's Gems and Gemology magazine about these unusual stones. This adventure was very interesting as the team was not only composed of the gemologists working at the Gübelin Gem Lab but it was also including many other gemologists and scientists working in different universities or at GIA. It was a pleasure and an honor to collaborate with such a team.

All the best,