Mollusk
Mollusk is a marine invertebrate that has a soft un-segmented body and is enclosed in a shell, such as a clam, mussel, oyster, or snail, .
Mollusk: An invertebrate animal usually enclosed in a shell, such as an oyster, mussel or clam.
Monoclinic: A system of crystallization wherein two crystal axes intersect obliquely and are perpendicular to the third. See Amphibole.
Pearl Mollusk Varieties
Pearl farmers typically use three varieties of mollusks to culture pearls. Australian Gold or Silver Lipped varieties of mollusk known as pinctada maxima are used to produce champagne or cream colored South Sea Pearls.
Mollusks create pearls in a palette of colors, from white to black and almost everything in between. Pearl co lour refers specifically to the color of the pearl's body, considered the fundamental color of the pearl.
Mollusks produce pearls in a variety of colors, accommodating most personal preferences and budgets. The general color of a pearl is also known as the body color. Pearls typically range from white, cream, and yellow to pink, silver, or black.
Mollusk - The oyster, or other shellfish, used to produce pearls.
Mother of pearl - The lining of an oyster shell, mother of pearl is used as the nucleus bead implanted inside the mollusk along with the mantle to produce pearls.
Mollusk
An aquatic, soft-bodied invertebrate that lives in a shell. Mollusks are found in seawater and freshwater.
Momme ...
mollusk
A mollusk is an animal with a soft body and an external skeleton or shell. The shell protects and supports this fragile animal. There are over 100,000 species of mollusks on the planet, but only a few produce pearls.
moonstone ...
A mollusk with a pair of shells (valves) which open by a means of a hinge.
Biwa Pearl
A non-nucleated cultured pearl from Japan's largest lake, Lake Biwa.
One mollusk can produce a variety of pearl
colors and sizes.
Pearl Characteristics
The quality of a pearl is judged based on multiple characteristics - luster, size, shape, color, and surface.
As a mollusk creates a pearl, the layers of nacre do not always adhere smoothly. Sometimes spots and bubbles can appear in the layering process. Pearls with the smoothest surfaces are the highest-quality, most sought-after pearls.
As a mollusk creates a pearl, sometimes the layers of nacre do not adhere smoothly, so spots and bubbles can appear. These imperfections may be small and unnoticeable or large and distinct.
Conch: A mollusk with a pearly shell that vary in color with pink being the most prized. Conch is made into cameos and beads.
Concha: A silver disc that is used to decorate a belt or bridle. From the Spanish word for "shell".
Abalone is a mollusk whose shell is iridescent on the inside; abalone is a source of mother of pearl, which is used in jewelry making.
Acroite
Acroite is a rare, colorless variety of tourmaline.
Abalone: A mollusk whose shell is pearlescent on the inside. This material can be scraped off, sliced thin, and used as inlay on a variety of jewelry, furniture, etc. These scrapings are called "mother of pearl".
Akoya oysters: Mollusks of choice in the cultivation of saltwater pearls.
Alluvial deposits: Gem deposits found in water after they have been separated from the mother rock.
Almost any shelled mollusk can, by natural processes, produce some kind of "pearl" when an irritating microscopic object becomes trapped within the mollusk's mantle folds, but virtually none of these "pearls" are considered to be gemstones.
Cultured Pearl:A pearl created when an irritant is introduced inside a mollusk by man. The coating or nacre the mollusk secrets around the intrusion to protect itself create a "cultured" pearl.
pearl Smooth, round, shiny, organic object composed mainly of calcium carbonate found in the shells of some mollusks. Not to be confused with mother-of-pearl.
Conch is a marine animal (a mollusk) with a large, beautiful pearly shell that varies in color, but if often white or pink (pink is the most valued color). Queen conch has a large, pink shell. Conch shell is often used to make jewelry.
Pearls vary in color form white, or white with a hint of color (often pink) to brown or black, depending on the type of mollusk and the water. They are sensitive to acids, dryness, and humidity, and so are less durable than many other gems.
The pearl is an organic gem grown within oysters and a few other mollusks. It is formed when a foreign object, like a tiny stone, makes its way into the mollusk's shell.
Formation - Non-nacreous melo pearls are formed when an irritant enters the mantle of a mollusk; it may take several decades to grow a melo pearl of significant size.
An organic gem, pearls are formed inside mollusks such as oysters and mussels. They are formed when an irritant such as a tiny stone or bit of sand gets inside the mollusk's shell.
Nacre: It is the secretion from the mantle of mollusks such as oysters and abalone, which coats an irritant, thereby creating a pearl. Nacre is a mixture of crystalline calcium carbonate and conchiolin.
Pearls are organic gems grown within oysters and a few other mollusks. Pearls are formed when a foreign object (like a tiny stone) has made its way into the mollusk's shell.
A cultivated pearl usually begins its life when a spherical bead or a piece of mantle tissue is placed inside the mollusk. After this seeding process, the pearl farmers place the mollusks in wire-mesh baskets and suspend them in water.
Pearls are a true wonder of nature and the result of a clever self-defensive mechanism owned by some types of mollusks which we generally name "pearl oysters", even when most of them are not the eatable oyster type or oysters at all.
Pearls are produced by oysters - this is true for saltwater pearls but the freshwater pearls are also cultivated within other shelled clams or mollusks.
What we commonly call pearls are irritant-induced secretions of mollusks which are covered with lustrous nacre (a combination of aragonite or calcite and conchiolin protein).
Pinctada fucata or Pinctada martens (commonly called Akoya Pearl Oyster): Akoya cultured pearls-producing saltwater mollusks grown in the cooler waters of Japan or China.
A pearl begins its life as a tiny impurity (such as a small sea animal or grain of sand) inside the folds of an oyster's or mollusk's fleshy body.
One of the few organic gems, Pearls form in Oysters and other mollusks in both freshwater and saltwater.
They are produced by the large, black-lipped pearl oyster Pinctada margaritifera (also called the Tahitian black pearl oyster), a mollusk found in the tropical Indo-Pacific Ocean.
Natural pearls are created when certain types of mollusks secret nacre around an irritant, which has entered the mollusk without the intervention of man.
Aragonite forms naturally in almost all mollusk shells, and as the calcareous endoskeleton of warm- and cold-water corals (Scleractinia).
A pearl is a smooth, lustrous, variously-colored deposit formed around a grain of sand in the shell of a certain mollusk such as oysters. Pearls may be formed naturally or "cultured" through an artificial implanting process.
Pearl: An organic gem grown within oysters and other mollusks when they produce nacre as a reaction to an irritant. A good sized pearl can take between five to eight years to form, which is usually the entire life of the oyster or mollusk.
Pearls are formed in molluskan bivalves (clams, oysters, mussels) of several species by the secretion of a substance known as nacre around an irritant in the outer tissue (mantle) of the organism, or between the outer tissue and the shell.
They are also grown within live mollusks; however, in a cultured pearl, the initial irritant is inserted by man, then nature completes the process. During the culturing process, the mollusk may stay in the water for up to three or more years.
Freshwater Pearl: A pearl produced by a mollusk that inhabits fresh water, such as a lake or river, as opposed to sea water.
Pearls are naturally occurring gemstones formed within the soft tissue of certain living shelled mollusks, otherwise known as oysters.
Pearls are organic gems grown within oysters and several other mollusks, which are most valued and sought after when perfectly round and very lustrous. Pearls form as a result of an irritant, which makes its way into the oyster or mollusk shell.
When an object gets inside the shell of a mollusk, it will protect itself by coating the invading object with nacre, which is the same material it uses to coat pearls. Nacre is found in pearl oysters, freshwater mussels and abalone.
Recently, techniques have been developed to culture pearls in freshwater mollusks (mussels and clams), found in freshwater lakes and rivers.
When an irritant - like a grain of sand - finds its way inside the shell of an oyster or other mollusk, its body reacts by forming a small sac around the intruder, then building up layer after layer of nacre around it. The result - a pearl.
Pearl - Organic gems of calcium carbonate grown within mollusks-- specifically oysters, although in very rare cases, snails have produced pearls. Although the Moh's hardness is only 3-4, they are so compact it is very difficult to crush one.
A tiny irritant like a bead, grain of sand, or a piece of mother of pearl from another mollusk can be inserted into the opening of an oyster or mollusk.
Pearls which have been seeded by man, mimicking the natural pearl process in live mollusks. A pearl is formed as a result of implanting a piece of mantle from a mollusk into another host mollusk.
(a) Pearl: A calcareous concretion consisting essentially of alternating concentric layers of carbonate of lime and organic material formed within the body of certain mollusks, ...
Abalone The colorful, pearly iridescent inner shell of the mollusk. Characteristically of a dark green color, it is also the source of the many-colored mother of pearl.
Pearls are created by mollusks and consist mainly of calcium carbonate. They vary in size from seed pearls to pigeons egg. Pearls are graded in different categories - luster, color, size and pore size.
Mother of Pearl is the name given to the iridescent coating on the inside of mollusk shells. When an object gets inside the shell of a mollusk, it will protect itself by coating the invading object with the same material it uses to coat pearls.
A pearl is formed when a bit of sand or other irritant gets inside the shell of a mollusk, such as an oyster. The mollusk secretes calcium carbonate to surround the irritant, which accumulates in layers of aragonite and conchiolin.
Freshwater cultured pearls are pearls that are grown in mollusks that live in freshwater ponds, lakes and rivers rather than in the ocean and are produced in mussels.
A shiny, iridescent substance secreted by a mollusk in response to a foreign substance such as a grain of sand or an inserted bead. Layers of nacre form a pearl.
Abalone Iridescent pieces of shell from the abalone sea mollusk.
Acrylic A glassy plastic-like material which can be molded or cast or used in paints and coatings.
In the warmer waters of the South Pacific, bigger mollusks produce South Sea cultured pearls and black Tahitian cultured pearls, which are larger, up to 20 mm in size.
Overview: Ammonites were cephalopods (predatory marine mollusks) similar to the modern Squid, Octopus and chambered Nautilus. Ammonite plays a key role in the traditional culture and magicof many tribals.
Unlike other gemstones that come from solid ground, pearls are actually "harvested" from mollusks, such as clams. Pearls can take as many as seven-to-eight years to mature.
 See also: Pearl, Jewel, Color, Stone, Pearls
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