Pearls – Types of Pearls and What makes Pearls Valuable

By Diana Kirkpatrick | March 27, 2015

Pearls start when an irritating microscopic object becomes trapped within the soft tissue of a live mollusk. The mollusk creates a pearl sac to seal off the irritation and then secretes multiple layers of nacre (calcium carbonate), eventually creating a pearl Ideally, pearls are round and smooth, but many other shapes can occur due to…

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Gemstones I Love – Part 5 – Freshwater Pearls

By Diana Kirkpatrick | February 11, 2014

Pearls are unique!   These beautiful creations can be termed organic gems:  pearls are formed inside oysters and mussels when a bit of sand or other irritant gets inside the mollusk’s shell. The mollusk secretes layers of a lustrous material called nacre around the foreign object to protect its soft internal surface.    As layer after…

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