Susan's Pick of the month is this spectacular showpiece that she had commissioned for our Sedona Gallery's tenth year anniversary. This necklace features multi-faceted shapes of peridot with matching earrings.  *Susan Heike Wilhelm is a designer and part owner with her husband, Joseph. 

Peridot, the birthstone for August and also the gemstone for the 15th wedding anniversary.  Peridot is gem quality olivine. It is found in lava, meteorites , and deep in the earth's mantle.The green color is caused by impurities of iron. 

Peridots can also have extraterrestrial origins in Pallasite meteorites.  Peridot as an interplanetary mineral found in the stony-iron content of the meteorite with yellowish green olivine. Touchstone gallery offers its customers this rare meteorite on occasion, please inquire if interested. 

Sources:
Egyptians first mined peridot on the Red Sea island of Zabargad. The remote island was obscured by fog most of the time and early navigators had difficulty finding the island. It is thought that the green gemstone used in Cleopatra's crown was more than likely peridot and not emeralds as originally thought. 

Today peridot is mined primarily in Egypt, from the once lost island of Zabargad in the Red Sea. Where fog made it difficult for the ancient mariners to navigate. It was rediscovered  in 1905. 

Myanmar, where the larger peridot is found several hundred carets in size. 
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​Arizona and New Mexico where it is eroded from parent rock. Ants remove these these grains in order to build their homes subsequently grains of peridot can be found among the small grains of gravel of their hills. Navajo Reservations are also a source of peridot. 

Touchstone gallery offers many choices in peridot jewelry and at affordable price points. We invite you to visit one of our gallery locations to see our many offerings in peridot. 

Care:
​Olivines can range in hardness from 6.5 (fayalite) to 7 (forsterite). Thus, peridots can approach quartz gems in hardness. However, they are still sensitive to scratching from household dust (which has a hardness like quartz). Furthermore, they have some susceptibility to stress fractures.
Clean them only with a soft brush, mild detergent, and warm water. Peridots also have some sensitivity to acids, even those found in perspiration. Peridot jewelry should be worn against the skin only occasionally

Ruby is said to be associated with strong emotions such as love, passion, a fiery spirit, and a zest for life! Rubies and Sapphires share all of the same properties in that they are both varieties of Corundum with the exception that ruby has trace elements of chromium that gives it the red color.
It is that red color that makes it the highest priced gemstone per caret in the world of gems in the color gemstone realm.  Rubies are a red to orange-red to purple-red variety of the mineral corundum, aluminum oxide (Al2O3). Ruby and its companion variety of corundum, sapphire, are very hard being  9 Mohs scale of 10. The very best color in Myanmar rubies is sometimes described as “pigeon’s blood.” Lore is that the first two drops of pigeons's blood from the beak was the prized color for comparing rubies. it has a hint of blue tint to the red. (BTW no pigeons were sacrificed for this blog).


When researching for this blog I came across some interesting geological information surrounding the question of how were rubies even able to come into existence? What follows is an excerpt from an article in Discover Magazine, The Geology of Rubies, written by Anne Sasso, November 4, 2014.

​"The biggest question, the one that has geologists on both sides of the Atlantic at odds with each other, is how rubies formed in the first place. Geologists simply do not know. That rubies even exist, says Peter Heaney, geosciences professor at Penn State University, is something of a “minor geological miracle.” 

My takeaway from this article is that corundum is a rare mineral made up of other tightly packed aluminum and oxygen atoms. Some of the atoms were substituted for aluminum, then more colorful hues emerge. Small amounts of traces of Chromium imparts the red color. Second factoid, Since silica is one of the most abundant elements in Earth’s crust, how is it that rubies managed to avoid it but at the same time connect with the exceedingly rare chromium? And how did rubies avoid iron, another common element?  I just found this exceedingly interesting and had to share it with our readers, but I encourage you to read the whole article on your own as I was just doing a short summary. Scientist go on to try to offer other geological shifts that may have influenced how rubies were able to avoid silica and iron. So geek out and follow this link!

https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-geology-of-rubies 


Touchstone is happy to bring to our customers offerings in Ruby Earrings, and Bracelet: Please click on the image to link to the page for more information about the products that you see here.

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