Ammolite Fossil Opalescent ~ Gemstone Necklace ~ incl. 925 Sterling Silver eyelet + a 304 stainless steel chain with lobster clasp

A brand new achievement & proud creation from me for you ~ an Ammolite stone, an absolute dream stone, very rare and magical.

Age of the stone: approx. 70 - 75 million years
Chain length: 50cm
Size: See photo with Euro piece comparison

On the history of ammolites:

Ammolite is a rare opalescent/opalescent gemstone. It is found mainly on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains and consists of the fossilized remains of ammonites. Ammolite is also sold under the trade names calcentine or korite. In the languages ​​of the Blackfoot Indian tribes native to the area, the stone is called aapoak (small, crawling stone in the Kainai language because of the play of colors) or iniskim ("buffalo stone").

During the Cretaceous period, North America had a large subtropical inland sea, the Western Interior Seaway. Due to continental drift, the younger part of the Rocky Mountains folded up, while the sea gradually disappeared. The ammonites Placenticeras meeki and Placenticeras intercalare and, more rarely, Baculites compressus lived in this warm sea.

After death, their shells sank to the sea floor and were covered by clay (bentonite). In these bentonite sediment layers, the ammonites were mostly crushed, but the shells remained intact. These shells were partly made of mother-of-pearl, i.e. fine plate-like aragonite crystals embedded in a protein matrix.

In most fossilized shells, the aragonite was dissolved out because it is more soluble than, for example, calcite in the surrounding rock. The resulting cavities were often later filled with other material such as calcite or, more rarely, pyrite, or remained hollow. At temperatures above 400 °C, the less stable aragonite was transformed into the more stable calcite. This is why fossils with preserved aragonite are particularly rare.

However, the process was somewhat different for the ammonite shells from which ammolite was formed. The aragonite was preserved, mainly due to the covering of waterproof volcanic ash that came from eruptions of the volcanoes in the Rocky Mountains that were forming. At the same time, the layers containing the ammonites were not buried too deeply, so they did not heat up to more than 400 °C. During diagenesis, trace elements such as iron and magnesium migrated into the shells.

Only rarely are completely well-preserved ammonites found in which the lobe lines are still visible. Ammonites up to 90 cm in size have been found, but usually the opalescent ammonites are much smaller.
Characteristics
Ammolite consists mainly of aragonite, which comes directly from the original mother of pearl in the shells of the ammonites. In addition to aragonite, calcite, quartzite, pyrite and other minerals are present in varying proportions. A number of trace elements are found in the shell itself (aluminium, barium, chromium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, strontium, titanium and vanadium).



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"A stone is the condensed history of the universe"

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