How and where are Pearl’s formed?

Pearls are fascinating organic gems.  They are made from a group of animals called bivalve mollusks. These mollusks include clams, oysters, mussels and abalone.  While pearls are made from living organism, the pearls that are created are exactly the same compounds found in the crust of the earth.  These types of gemstones are called calcite and aragonite.  They are formed from calcium carbonate.

It is interesting how a pearl forms.  While most people believe that a small grain of sand finds it way into the mollusk and irritates it, this is partially true.  While sand can be an irritant, it is mostly irritated by other animal shells or parasites.  To defend itself, the mollusk secretes a protein, which is calcium carbonate that envelopes the particle so that it will no longer harm the animal.  Usually it can take from 3 to 6 years for a full pearl to form.

Today, cultured pearls are primarily sold in commercial jewelry stores, while there is no difference between the type of material used to create the pearl, cultured pearls have had human intervention.  Usually mollusks are cultivated, at a certain age, they have a small irritant added into their shell that jump starts the natural process of creating a pearl.

Pearls that are cultured can be determined easily by one method, that is the x-ray.  Cultured pearls use a round, spherical particle as the irritant, natural pearls are usually infected by unique particles with different shapes and sizes.  Because natural pearls are much more rare than cultured pearls, they are usually much more expensive.

The colors, shapes and sizes that Pearls come in

Pearls are some of the most beautiful gemstones in the world and while their organic compounds are found naturally in the earth’s crust, they are created by living organisms, giving them the name organic gemstone.  Pearls are made from calcium carbonate, which is found in minerals such as aragonite and calcite.  However, pearls are created by mollusks that secrete this protein to protect itself from an irritant that has found its way into the shell.  This irritant can be a small particle of sand, a small piece of shell or a parasite.

Pearls come in a wonderful array of colors; however, its most common color is white.  Other colors that are common are silver, and white or silver tinged with green or blue. Many times Pearls give off an iridescent quality.  This is caused by the structure of the pearl.  The secretions of calcite are so small that light waves usually reflect from the Pearl giving it wonderful hues and an aura affect.  Another color that pearls come in is black.  Unfortunately, black pearls are very rare and for certain reasons can not be produced with human intervention.

Pearls come also in a multitude of sizes.  While larger pearls are usually more expensive, they are usually harder to come by for two main reasons.  The first reason is that larger Pearls usually take much longer to grow. While the average Pearl can take 3 to 4 years to grow, larger pearls can take up to 6 years to grow.  The second reason why Pearls don’t often come in larger sizes is because; most mollusks that create Pearls fall into a certain size. Larger mollusks due exist, but culturing these larger mollusks are not as common.

Besides spherical shapes, there are many types of shapes that Pearls come in, such as tear drop, button and oval.