Monday, April 09, 2012

For something I have such a passion for, I'm constantly amazed at how little I know about gems, precious and semi-precious.




Take this lovely rainbow piece. It's almost exclusive found in a place called the four corners region of the Colorado Plateau in the USA where the states of Arizona, new Mexico, Utah and Colorado touch. It's dinosaur bone, petrified, permineralized or replaced with agate-type compounds. The original bone material has been replaced so that the structural detail is preserved and the interior pores and cavities have been filled with silica or quartz cystals letting us see the unique cell structure of once living dinosaurs.



 
There is a wide variety of colours from dull brown which looks like dino poop to these gorgeous specimens which look anything but. It all depends on the impurities that were in the surrounding sediment, chlorite, chromium, iron-oxide and manganese being some. The pink piece is extremely rare. 
Of course non-gem grade fossilized dinosaur bones are found in many places around the world.



But only a small portion has everything needed for a fine piece to be made into jewellry like these from Mark Anderson.

These specimens have not been raided from official sites as it's illegal to collect dino bone on US state for Federal lands. Most of the bone available is in broken blocks and chunks which due to erosion, weathering, and method of deposition, the pieces are not associated with a complete dinosaur skeleton and are of little value to a paleontologist

But the colours of gem quality Dino Bone are worth looking at and it is Jurassic Age material dating from 136,000,000 to 145,000,000 years old.

6 comments:

Elephant's Child said...

Mega thanks.

River said...

The Dino bones are stunning! I had no idea this could happen to fossilised bones. The rings are gorgeous too, I especially like the last two. I suppose they're hugely expensive?

JahTeh said...

I hope the two of you are watching that great programme on ABC1 about the ages of planet earth and how Australia has the whole record. We have plenty of dino bones but not this although we have opalized bones at Coober Pedy.
River, I didn't find any prices and you know the old saying, if you have to ask, you can't afford it.

Lord Rochester said...

Hi.

I have a passion
For fashion.
Let's go.

For I will make you queen
Of Raheen.

Tis the home of Mrs Pratt
But don't worry 'bout that.

(The old boy wasn't shy
Had a few on the sly
Ho-Ho, what a guy!)

Lots of dough and one wife.
Such is not life.

-Rochester.
Money makes the heart grow fonder.

Middle Child said...

thats so amazingly beautiful - thanks for that

JahTeh said...

Rochester, in your case, it's distance.

MC, aren't the colours fantastic but it's not all as good as this because I did find an image on Etsy that really did look like dino poop.