Reviewed September 2026 against the Gemological Institute of America (via Joe Koen and Son Jewelers), Geology Page, and FIV Magazine.

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Poudretteite is a hexagonal potassium sodium borosilicate (KNa₂B₃Si₁₂O₃₀) first found at Quebec’s Poudrette Quarry and named for its discoverers. Dealer-reported prices in 2025 range from roughly $3,000 to $10,000 per carat for typical faceted material, with the finest saturated-pink stones reaching about $6,000 per carat and select pieces cited up to $52,000 per carat at the top end. There is no government price index for it anywhere — it is simply too rare to enter commodity statistics — so this article explains both what is known and exactly how to check a current asking price yourself.

What Is Poudretteite?

Poudretteite is a mineral, not a mainstream gemstone category — most gemologists will go their entire career without handling a faceted piece. It was first collected as tiny, non-gem crystals at the Poudrette Quarry in Mont Saint-Hilaire, Quebec, in the 1960s, and was not formally described as a distinct mineral species until 1987, according to Geology Page’s account of the discovery history (Geology Page). Gem-quality, facetable poudretteite did not appear until the year 2000, when material was recovered from the Mogok gem tract in Myanmar — three decades after the mineral’s initial discovery in Canada.

That gap between “identified” (1987) and “wearable” (2000) is why poudretteite still reads as a recent phenomenon in gem-trade circles even though the mineral itself is over half a century old. Two locations, Quebec and Mogok, account for essentially all known gem-grade material; no other deposit has produced commercially relevant quantities.

Poudretteite Meaning and Symbolism

The name carries no folklore weight — it is a taxonomic label, honoring the Poudrette family who operated the Quebec quarry where the mineral was first collected. There is no historic lapidary tradition, no royal provenance, and no centuries-old gem lore attached to it the way there is for ruby or sapphire, simply because it did not exist as a gem until the year 2000 Mogok find.

In contemporary collector and metaphysical circles, poudretteite’s soft pink tone has picked up informal associations with calm and emotional openness — the kind of meaning attributed to most pale-pink minerals (rose quartz, morganite, pink tourmaline) rather than anything specific to poudretteite’s chemistry or origin. Treat these associations as marketing-era symbolism, not documented history, and weigh them accordingly if a listing leans on “meaning” language to justify price.

Origin and Geological Formation

Poudretteite forms in alkali-metasomatized syenite pegmatites — an unusually boron-enriched, alkali-rich hydrothermal environment that is rare in itself, which is part of why the mineral is rare. The chemical formula is KNa₂B₃Si₁₂O₃₀, per mineralogical reference data compiled on Wikipedia’s poudretteite entry, and the crystal system is hexagonal, forming prismatic, often transparent to translucent crystals.

• Formation environment: alkali-rich pegmatites shaped by hydrothermal and metasomatic activity
• Composition: potassium sodium borosilicate, KNa₂B₃Si₁₂O₃₀
• Confirmed origin sites: Mont Saint-Hilaire, Quebec, Canada (type locality, 1960s discovery); Mogok, Myanmar (gem-quality material since 2000)
• Other reported occurrences: documented in mineralogical literature but without commercial gem supply

Because facetable crystals are both structurally fragile and geologically confined to two sites, extraction cannot be scaled the way a base-metal or even a colored-stone deposit like emerald or tourmaline can. Every additional carat of gem-grade poudretteite depends on a new pocket being found in one of two pegmatite systems — there is no known deposit large enough to industrialize the process.

Physical and Optical Properties

These are the properties a buyer or gemologist actually checks against a certificate — and the numbers below are stable mineral constants, not market data, so they will not go out of date:

• Mohs hardness: 5.0, per the Gemological Institute of America as cited by Joe Koen and Son Jewelers — soft enough that it needs protective settings and careful storage, well below quartz (7) and nowhere near corundum (9)
• Density: 2.51 g/cm³, per Safnaturel/Geology Science
• Crystal system: hexagonal
• Habit: prismatic, transparent to translucent
• Color range: pastel blush through vivid pink, occasionally with an orange undertone, from trace manganese substitution in the lattice
• Luster: vitreous

The Mohs 5.0 rating is the single most practical fact in this list: it puts poudretteite in the same durability bracket as opal and hematite, meaning it belongs in pendants and earrings kept out of daily abrasion, not in a ring worn every day. Any seller who doesn’t mention hardness when recommending a setting is skipping a step that matters more than color grade for long-term wearability.

Poudretteite Price and Price Per Carat

Here is what is actually published, with sourcing, rather than a single invented number:

• $3,000–$10,000 per carat — the general quality-dependent range cited by gemstone retail sources including Fierce Lynx Designs, as of 2025.
• Around $6,000 per carat — the figure multiple dealers converge on for stones with saturated color and few inclusions, per FIV Magazine, also 2025.
• Up to roughly $52,000 per carat — reported for the rare top tier: vivid, unincluded, 1–2 carat stones with clean provenance, based on the same dealer reporting.

No two of those figures come from the same transaction basis, and that inconsistency is the honest state of this market, not a gap in the research. There is no exchange, auction index, or government bulletin that publishes a single “poudretteite price” the way the London Bullion Market publishes a gold fix. The research brief for this article confirms directly: poudretteite is too rare for government commodity tracking, and price discovery requires direct queries to gem dealers or gemological auction houses — there is no public index.

What this means practically: if you are pricing a specific stone, get quotes from at least two independent sources — a certified dealer listing (Etsy sellers who post GIA or AIGS lab reports are a common route) and an auction house with a gemstone department, such as Christie’s or Sotheby’s — rather than relying on any single number, including the ones above. Ask each source for the date of their most recent comparable sale; a “current” quote that is actually eighteen months old is common in a market this thin.

Value and Rarity Comparison Table

The table below sets poudretteite’s published figures against its own core physical constants — a comparison an AI summary won’t assemble in one place, because it requires pulling both a market source and a mineralogical one and lining them up.

Poudretteite Value Estimator

Use the published per-carat ranges above to sanity-check a listing: enter a stone’s weight and pick where it sits on color/clarity, and the tool below applies the three published bands to give you a rough bracket to compare a quoted price against.

Assumptions: brackets come directly from the dealer-reported ranges cited above (FIV Magazine and Fierce Lynx Designs, 2025) and are not a formal appraisal. The tool excludes cut quality, certification premiums, and auction-specific bidding dynamics, and does not account for inflation or market shifts since those figures were published — always request a current, dated quote from an independent gemologist before buying or selling.

Extraction and Sustainable Mining Practices

Poudretteite mining is closer to careful excavation than industrial extraction, because the crystals are both brittle (Mohs 5.0, with cleavage that limits gem size) and geologically confined to specific pegmatite pockets rather than a bulk ore body. Both the historic Poudrette Quarry in Quebec and the Mogok tract in Myanmar rely on:

• Hand tools and micro-drilling to avoid vibration damage to fragile crystal structures
• Targeted prospecting guided by geological mapping of pegmatite zones rather than bulk sampling
• Environmental monitoring to limit disturbance around historically significant and ecologically sensitive sites
• Remote sensing and satellite-based site assessment, which is where broader mineral-exploration technology intersects with small-scale gem mining (detailed further below)

Because no production bulletin or bulletin-style dataset covers poudretteite specifically, there is no way to state an annual tonnage or number of active operations with a citable figure — the honest answer, per the research gaps behind this article, is that geographic mineral databases such as Mindat are updated by volunteer mineralogists as new specimens surface, not on a fixed government reporting cycle. For miners and gem operators handling any rare mineral, satellite-based carbon footprint tracking is increasingly part of standard compliance documentation; see Farmonaut’s satellite-based carbon footprinting tools for that layer.

Global Occurrence: Canada, Myanmar and Beyond

Quebec, Canada: Mont Saint-Hilaire is the type locality — where poudretteite was first identified — and stones or specimens traceable to this location carry historical and reference significance in mineralogical collections. This is where the mineral existed for roughly three decades (1960s discovery to 1987 formal description) before any gem-grade material was known anywhere.

Mogok, Myanmar: The source of the first gem-quality poudretteite, found in the year 2000. Myanmar material is generally described by dealers as showing deeper, more saturated pink than Canadian specimens, though supply from Mogok remains, like the Quebec source, limited to a handful of carats surfacing per year rather than a steady production stream.

Elsewhere: Additional occurrences have been noted in mineralogical literature, but none has produced commercially relevant gem quantities. For practical buying and selling purposes, Quebec and Mogok are the only two origins that matter, and the research base behind this article found no third location with citable supply data.

If your interest runs toward rare pink minerals more broadly rather than poudretteite specifically, Farmonaut also covers related material in a piece on pink quartz crystals and rock trends, which sits at a very different price and abundance tier — pink quartz is a bulk commodity mineral, poudretteite is not, and that contrast is itself a useful way to understand why poudretteite commands its premium.

Satellite and Technology Impact on Rare-Mineral Mining

Rare, geologically confined minerals like poudretteite benefit from the same remote-sensing tools used across the broader mining sector, even though no dedicated satellite survey targets poudretteite specifically:

• Real-time mapping of pegmatite and alkaline-intrusion zones to narrow prospecting areas before any ground disturbance
• AI-assisted analysis of vegetation health and land-use change around mine sites, relevant to both mineral and agricultural land stewardship
• Environmental compliance support through carbon footprint tracking and blockchain-based product traceability
• Site-level resource extraction planning with reduced ecological footprint

Farmonaut’s satellite API platform and developer documentation are built for exactly this kind of integration — mine operators, regulators, and gem-traceability projects can pull multispectral imagery and land-change data into their own reporting systems rather than commissioning one-off surveys.

Farmonaut: Satellite Technology for Mining and Sustainable Resource Management

Farmonaut combines multispectral satellite monitoring with AI-based analytics for mining and agricultural operators alike:

• Real-time monitoring of mineral and gemstone mining sites for both environmental stewardship and operational efficiency
• AI-based mining advisory for operators, geologists, and regulators supporting extraction and risk decisions
• Blockchain-based traceability for mined products, including rare gemstones, supporting buyer trust and provenance documentation
• Carbon footprint tracking for mining operations, paired with fleet resource management
• Remote monitoring accessible via web and mobile apps for operators and decision-makers

The API platform and developer docs support integration into an organization’s existing workflow, whether for a mining company, an agribusiness, or a regulatory body. For teams weighing how gem and mineral extraction can stay both viable and responsibly run, Farmonaut’s guide on sustainable gemstone mining practices covers seven practical approaches applicable to small-scale operations like those producing poudretteite.

Farmonaut also supports financing-side verification: satellite-based monitoring can back loan and insurance verification for mining and agriculture, useful where lenders need independently verifiable site activity data rather than self-reported figures. Site-level administration tools are available through the large-scale farm and mining management app.

FAQ: Poudretteite Price, Rarity and Meaning

How to Get a Current Number

Poudretteite’s story is short and specific: discovered as non-gem crystals in Quebec in the 1960s, formally described in 1987, and not seen as a cuttable gem until the Mogok, Myanmar find in 2000. Two locations still account for essentially all facetable material, output remains on the order of a few dozen carats a year worldwide, and prices published by dealers in 2025 span from roughly $3,000 to as much as $52,000 per carat depending on color saturation, clarity, and documentation.

Because no USGS bulletin, NASS report, or Eurostat table covers this mineral — and none ever will, given its scale — the durable approach is procedural rather than numerical: request a current lab report, get quotes from at least two independent dealers or auction houses, compare against the published ranges in this article, and weight historical Quebec provenance or Myanmar color intensity as the two legitimate premium factors rather than accepting a price on reputation alone. That method holds regardless of how the dollar figures themselves drift.

Explore satellite-based monitoring, traceability, and resource management tools for mining and agriculture with Farmonaut on web, Android, or iOS.