Nautilus pearl

[SteveM]

Alien eyeball?

OK, one image too many! I promise to post no more of this particular pearl until a proper camera and/or photographer can be employed! The pearl is endlessly fascinating with its inner light and surface patterns, well beyond my ability to capture.

But GemGeek's comment serves as a useful reminder that this is anything but a beauty contest. Reliable ID for Nautilus pearls is the issue, as no specimen to date, certified or otherwise?with the potential exception of this pearl (all cat-ting aside!)?offers anything other than anecdotal support.

 

[pattye]

Oh, you two--gave me my laugh for the morning!!

 

[GemGeek]

No, keep the photographs coming. If it's an alien eyeball, it's a beautiful and mysterious one!

 

[SteveM]

?a beautiful and mysterious one!

Much better!

(No implication intended that alien is NOT beautiful?or mysterious.)

 

[SteveM]

This pearl has appeared in prior posts here.

While not among our primary candidates for Nautilus (despite the swirl and iridescence), it was offered with the most precise and recent provenance from the Indonesian sources: Fished in August of this year, in a specified location. No shell (finder went back to the island at my request to try to retrieve it, without success). But all involved insist it is Kerang Lobo (Nautilus Pompilius).

The pearl is a very large perfect tear drop (and subject of my current avatar), 21.75 carats, 20.3x12.2mm. The vertically grouped aragonite fibers are arranged like waves, their reflective forward slopes oriented towards the bottom of the pearl. Therefore, the iridescent chatoyance is best seen from "below." It is a phenomenon equally distributed around all sides of the pearl. While appearing pitted even on close observation, the surface is quite smooth.

What would an appropriate jewelry application be? As a pendant looking straight on, the chatoyance would not be perceived to any degree. Displaying the pearl straight out from the body end-to-end does not seem practical, unless as a diadem for the upper forehead (for a Maharaja)?

Tom or anyone, does this pearl resemble anything currently in your collection?

 

[GemGeek]

That is so cool. Looks like the surface of the moon shimmering under the surface of the pearl.

 

[Chameleon]

My thought exactly - "like the surface of the moon".

Maybe it is reasonable to set the pearl into a brooch as it would be easier setting on a desired angle.

I wonder if somebody would be able to paint the pearl... it would demand a 3D capability though.

 

[SteveM]

I wonder if somebody would be able to paint the pearl...

You mean orange, like melo-melo?or pink, like Queen Conch? I also assume you mean with Photoshop, not dye!

My avatar is the polar swirl of this pearl, automatically colorized with the 'Solarize' feature of Photoshop, mimicking the colorization of Cathodoluminescent Microscopy (CLM) images required for their analysis.

 

[Chameleon]

Actually, I thought of a real painting, on canvas/paper using oil or pastel perhaps. I wonder if it would be possible to capture the special features of these pearls on painting... the "egg" maybe?

Your avatar is awesome!

Maria

 

[SteveM]

Actually, I thought of a real painting, on canvas/paper using oil or pastel perhaps. I wonder if it would be possible to capture the special features of these pearls?

Or any pearls, for that matter. In comparison, even good photography might look like child's play.

 

[SteveM]

Two more images of Nautilus pearl candidates previously posted, here photographed under identical lighting conditions.

The 'blister' is on the left.

The mesmerizing swirl would not have diminished these pearls' mystical status among the islanders?

 

[GemGeek]

Outstanding photographs - you really captured the essence of the swirls. Now it looks like two arms of a hurricane are swirling around the eye, as opposed to one long spiral. Fascinating!

 

[Caitlin]

Looks like dna with that double spiral. Magical, mystical, indeed.

 

[SteveM]

Now it looks like two arms of a hurricane are swirling around the eye…

I keep thinking extraterrestrial worlds…to me they look like galaxies.

Brings to mind a Sci-Fi short story I read as a youth in which the entire human race united in panic to launch its collective nuclear arsenal at a huge, blinking eye in the sky (apparently not related to Philip Dick's novel 'Eye in the Sky'). The launch is successful, and the eye disappears at last.

Cut to a little boy holding a magical little black box, peering through an opening at a suspended, illuminated earth-like orb spinning in the blackness. Suddenly he yelps as his eye is stung, causing him to drop the box.

Perhaps I shouldn't be staring at these pearls too closely. That alien eyeball could be mine!

[If anyone knows the title and the author of the above I'd appreciate it.]

 

[SteveM]

…it was a loose pearl until it grew big enough to rupture the pearl sac.

Definition timeout. A while back the blister issue came up, and upon request for clarification GIA Bangkok's Ken Scarratt today forwarded the pertinent CIBJO Pearl Book entries (for which he is the cited source):

5.25.
Blister pearl
a natural pearl, (5.134) that has perforated the mantle of the mollusc and has naturally adhered, through layers of nacreous or non nacreous secretions applied by the mollusc, to the inner wall of the shell. The subsequently formed layers of nacreous or non nacreous material are continuous with those of the inner wall of the shell. They are round or irregular in shape and are secreted without human intervention (Scarratt, 2001). The base of natural blister pearls may be worked (5.220).

5.26.
Blisters
a blister, is an internal protuberance of the shell caused by the intrusion of foreign bodies between the mantle and the shell The interior may or may not be hollow and the secretion occurs naturally, without human intervention.

So it is clear that the pearl 'formerly attached to the Nautilus shell' is correctly defined as a 'Blister Pearl.'

 

[hacostas]

Well, if that is the official definition, then it is, indeed, a blister pearl.

Blister pearl is one thing, blister is another thing completely different, and blister cultured pearl yet another.

To me only the 'blister' definition is correct. Definitions for 'blister pearl' and 'blister cultured pearl' are not.

Maybe this will change in the future. In the mean time we shall call your nautilus pearl, 'nautilus blister pearl'

 

[SteveM]

Link to an article concerning recent research on the evolution and taxonomy of the Nautilus, an enigmatic creature that endlessly fascinates the scientific community?not to mention us rare pearl fanatics.

The author, a leading international authority on the subject, is Professor of Biology at the University of Washington in Seattle (my alma mater). Fate dictated contact, and Dr. Ward responded from a current project in Antarctica agreeing to a meeting in the New Year concerning our search for Nautilus pearls. Will report (in case of doubt!).

 

[Caitlin]

Loved the background article. It's getting us ready for the pearls. And these study specimens have provided pearls to the scientists? Very good provenance, if so.

Thanks Steve, excellent article to go with the AM java.

 

[SteveM]

And these study specimens have provided pearls to the scientists? Very good provenance, if so.

No pearls to my knowledge?wonder if over the course of his 40 years of research into Nautilus shells Professor Ward or his peers might have inadvertently missed an opportunity (or two)?

 

[Valeria101]

?wonder if over the course of his 40 years of research into Nautilus shells Professor Ward or his peers might have inadvertently missed an opportunity (or two)?

Must be! There is hardly any mention of pearls in all the current literature. Cannot accept that these could have been knowingly ignored.