Ammolite Pendant
James Monaco
Ammolite is an iridescent fossil shell - the remains of an Ammonoid
I picked up some Ammolite at the Tuscon Gem and Mineral show in, of course, the fossil area, just off the highway. The pieces were not cleaned up and you could only faintly see the promise of iridescence. I thought they were beautiful. In fact, it was the very first thing I purchased.
Ammolite is a rare gemstone in the same family as pearls, coral and amber, all things that were living or came from living things. In other words, organic gemstones. The outer layer is composed of the same material as some pearls but look at the amazing framework it had to begin. This form did not begin as a grain of sand. It began as an Ammonoid.
Ammonoids were ferocious little mollusc creatures, the ancestors of octopus and squid. Similar to the chamber nautilus, these little guys used to hunt and catch their prey. They were first noted in the 419 million years ago and dying out with 75% of the plant and animal species in the mass-extinction event 66 million years back. But they left behind their shells! And geologists use their presence as a marker to determine the time layer in rock layers.
I plan to make more of these fossils into pendants so check back to see what I create next!!
Fossil pendant features tigers eye, amazonite, jasper and quartz beads.