This post is not about one of the author expeditions or about an article he collaborated with, but it is about one friend who was a constant source of inspiration for the author for many years. He was an inspiration before we actually met and he is still today as he is one of my most regular travel buddies: From 2005 to last month we visited Madagascar, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam ... That post is about my friend and mentor Richard W. Hughes.

Today I received the following press release (follow that link) from Sino Ressources Mining Corporation Ltd (Sino RMC) a mining company with a very interesting approach of gem mining. Richard W. Hughes has become CEO of the Sapphminco Division, and Senior Vice President of SinoRMC. Last Saturday he left Bangkok to Hong Kong where he will be based. This is sad news but also and good news.

Sad news as it will now be less easy for the author to meet Richard and benefit from his knowledge and experience about ruby and sapphires.

Good news as Richard will work on a very interesting project: Few months ago we visited together that mining operation on the Mekhong River banks near the city of Houay Xai in Laos. I visited already Houay Xai three times before that visit. Nevertheless that visit was a great surprise and one of the most interesting visit I had. The reason is simple: They were obviously trying to do there what I'm believing could be a great chance (and also a great challenge) for the gem industry:

I mean "conservation gem mining".

For several months visiting East Africa during summer 2009, the author visited several areas dedicated to conservation where gems were also produced. After spending 3 days under arrest in the Niassa National Reserve, trying to visit a ruby deposit in Mozambique, the author started to think seriously about concepts like "conservation gem mining" or "conservation gems". Nevertheless I was not thinking that just few months after I would visit a mining operation trying already to work for several years on such a project.

That was very motivating particularly as the author was working on his www.conservationgemology.org project.

Nevertheless Simon, the CEO of SinoRMC asked me to stay quiet for a while, as he was not yet feeling ready to communicate about what they were doing. They had first to be able to present some results, not only a nice project. No problem: For the GIA Laboratory Bangkok, the important thing is to be able to collect reference samples for our research projects on origin determination of gemstones. I can stay quiet for months or years if necessary.

But recently Sino Resources Mining Corporation has put a website online, hired Richard and sent that press release: It will be very interesting to follow what will happen between Laos, Australia and Hong Kong... So it is now time for this blog to go online and reveal a glimpse of what is going on near the great Mekhong River.

Richard W. Hughes to receive the 2010 Antonio Bonanno Award for Excellence in gemology :

This post is not about one of my expeditions but about one person who was a constant source of inspiration for me since the day I bough and read his book "Ruby and Sapphire". I mean American gemologist Richard W. Hughes the author of Ruby and sapphire and the webmaster of www.ruby-sapphire.com.

After returning from an expedition near Mogok in Burma, I found that book and after reading it I discovered a true passion for gemology as "gemology is not just about science but it is also about art, history, culture, people, language, traditions..."

I got in contact with Richard for the first time through an Internet gemological forum and few months after we met in Bangkok during the ICA congress in February 2005. We became instant friends and Richard was since then one of the best friend a young gemologist could have: His priceless advises, his permanent support were all the time very useful to me in order to make the right choices. In many aspects Richard W. Hughes is a key founderand one of the driving forces behind field gemology.org.

Richard hired me as a tour guide to take him to Madagascar in September 2005 and during that two weeks expedition to Ilakaka and Andilamena we had the time to brainstorm about many different subjects including this website.

Without Richard I would probably not be the gemologist I'm today, traveling around the world to visit gemstone mining areas and collect reference samples for the GIA. Without Richard this website would not be what it is now and also I would probably not have been able to visit some of the mining areas I visited since 2005. The fact is that one of the most important thing while traveling to gem mining areas is to have a good, motivated, enjoyable and reliable travel buddy. In fact traveling together and writting articles together as we did about spinel, tsavorite and tanzanite is a way to motivate each other to continue doing some good work.

Thanks to Richard constructive comments, Field Gemology.org looks better, my photos are also better and it is a pleasure to continue working on this concept.

Expedition to gemstones mining areas in Tanzania: (October 2007):

Introduction: This report (in two parts) presents the details of the field expedition to Tanzania lead by the author in October 2007. The author was then working as a gemologist for the Gubelin Gem Lab in Lucerne, Switzerland when his friend Richard W. Hughes (working then at the AGTA GTC Laboratory) asked him if he could help him to visit Tanzanian gem deposits in East Africa. After some difficult negociatiosn with his laboratory the author was allowed to take some holidays and travel to Tanzania with Richard W. Hughes and his group.

The group was composed of Richard W Hughes, the author of "Ruby and Sapphire", Warne and Monty Chitty, Mike Rogers, Guillaume Soubiraa and Philippe Brunot. For the expedition we got the support of Mark Saul (From Swala gem traders) and Abdul Y. Msellem a young Tanzanian broker who was already the author guide in Tanzania during his previous visit in 2005.

We started our visit in the north of the country in Arusha.

We travelled first to Morogoro where we visited some moonstone (I should probably say "peristerite"...) and corundum deposits. Then we continued to Mahenge to visit ruby and spinel mining areas. The visit was interesting as it was just few months after the discovery of several huge spinel crystals. Then we took the road to Songea and Tunduru famous for their sapphire mines. After that we continued to Ruangwa to visit its tsavorite mines. We returned then to the north of the country where we visited the Tanzanite mines at Merelani, emerald and alexandrite mines at Manyara, tsavorite mines near Komolo village and tourmaline mines near Lendanai in the Massai steppe.

Two reports are available on fieldgemology.org (with the old design of fieldgemology.org, before Dec 2009)

"Tanzania, October 2007, A Gemological Safari. Part 1: Ruby, Sapphire, Moonstone, Spinels, Tsavorite, Alexandrite: Gems from central and south Tanzania"

"Tanzania, October 2007, A Gemological Safari. Part 2: Tsavorite, Tanzanite, Chrome Tourmaline, Emerald and Alexandrites: Gems from the Massai Land (North Tanzania)"

A visit to gem markets and gem mining areas in Madagascar (Autumn 2005):

Abstract of the Madagascar Autumn 2005 expedition:
For that expedition the author was asked by Richard Hughes and his friend Dana Schorr if he could take him to visit the sapphire deposit in Ilakaka and the ruby deposit in Andilamena the author recenrly visited in June 2005. That expedition was the first time the author was traveling in the field with Richard W. Hughes. It was a great occasion for the author to spend some time with the author of "Ruby and Sapphire" the book that was largely responsible for the author decision to move from his past tour guide career into a becoming a gemologist.

That expedition was planned with the support of Tom Cushman, Danile Grondin and Marc Noveraz. We started our visit traveling from Antananarivo to Ilakaka where we visited the sapphire mine run by Marc Noveraz at Ampasimamitaka. That visit was an important one as later the analysis of the sapphires collected there revealed that some of these blue sapphires were containing naturally significant levels of beryllium, an element that was so far only believed to be present in beryllium treated stones. After visiting the Ilakaka and Sakaraha sapphire mining area we returned to Antananarivo and took the road to Andilamena. There we visited the Andrebabe sapphire deposit and the ruby deposit located in the jungle East of Andilamena.