Description
One Herkimer diamond and two faceted pink tourmalines sit sweetly atop a beautiful, banded rhodochrosite slice. This wonderful, one of a kind pendant is made with sterling silver.
Dimensions: 2.7″ ( long-with bail) x 1.1″ (wide) x .34″ (thick-Herkimer) / .19″ (thick-Rhodochrosite)
Weight: .66 ounces/18.8 grams
RHODOCHROSITE ~ This pink to rose-red mineral, an ore of manganese, is mined almost exclusively in Capillitas, a remote Andean region of Argentina. The mine, uncovered in 1938 by explorer Franz Manfiel, held the tomb of an Inca mummy holding an amulet of rhodochrosite. The Incas, while working this mine for copper and silver in the 13th century, had discovered the stone that came to be known as the “Inca Rose”. They believed that the blood of their rulers had turned to stone. In the 700 year interval, while the mine lay idle, rhodochrosite occurred as stalactitic formations, identified by the circular pattern in the stone. Crystals are very rare and usually small. Rhodocrosite is known as a body harmonizer and works best over the solar plexis, freeing the flow of energy throughout the body.
HERKIMER DIAMOND ~ These beautiful, doubly-terminated quartz crystals have already been faceted by nature. The bedrock in which they are found began forming approximately one-half billion years ago in a shallow Cambrian sea that lapped against the southern shores of the ancestral Adirondack Mountains. The limy sediments (calcium magnesium carbonate) which had accumulated beneath the sea were gradually compacted under the weight of thousands of feet of additional sediments, forming the rock strata known as Little Falls Dolostone. While still beneath the sea, water seeped through the pores of the rock, creating “vugs” by dissolving part of the rock. Millions of years later, silica rich water filled these vugs and eventually evaporated, leaving the silica to form quartz crystals.
TOURMALINE, a boron aluminum silicate, is perhaps the most fascinating of all gems. The diversity of its colors, the complexity of its composition, and the wonders of its physical properties are unmatched by any other gemstone. It comes in virtually every color, sometimes with several in the same crystal. The many varieties of tourmaline have been categorized into 6 major species: uvite, schorl, elbaite, liddicoatite, buergerite and dravite. Generally, only the elbaite and liddicoatite, which contain lithium, occur in rainbow colors, including the popular red-green combination aptly nicknamed “watermelon”. Tourmaline exhibits both pyroelectric (static electric) and piezoelectric properties. The latter makes it useful as a frequency stabilizer, a property it shares with quartz. As its powerful healing energies continue to unfold, tourmaline is emerging as one of the most important healing stones of the new age. Major deposits have been found in Brazil, Afghanistan, California and Maine, and Elba, Italy.
