Larimar Sterling Silver Artisan Necklace Pendant

This sterling silver pendant features a beautiful AAA grade Larimar cabochon from Dominican Republic.  I bezel set this elongated cabochon, and framed it with individually soldered large and small granulation. It has an enclosed back which helps protect the beautiful cabochon and also adds substantial silver weight to the piece.  It measures approximately 1 ½” not including the bail. This pendant comes with a 16” sterling silver chain, however the bail is large enough to accommodate thicker chains if you want to swap this one out.

Larimar is one of my favorite gemstones and certainly one of the most interesting and rare. It is a rock called pectolite which is a type of silicate mineral that fills holes and cavities within volcanic rock. Pectolite is found throughout the world; however, this stunning blue variety is found only in the Dominican Republic. It gets its beautiful blue colouration due to the presence of copper. Originally it was found on a single beach at the foot of the Bahoruco Mountain Range. Over time the holes and cavities in the volcanic rock were eroded, and the exposed larimar ended up tumbling its way down the Bahoruco River to the beach where it was thought to come from the sea. The craze for Larimar sadly brought about exploitation and the indiscriminate construction of around 2000 mine shafts on one side of the mountain, so the government constructed one large tunnel in an attempt to provide the miners with safer working conditions, and also to control the sale of the stone internationally. The mine was shut down briefly recently, however it has reopened with regulations in place regarding its sale. One Island country, one volcano, one river, and one small beach. It blows my mind how rare this stone is, and understanding that it is most likely a one-generational stone like Tanzanite or Paraiba Tourmaline, drives me to collect as much as I can before the source is mined out and the price skyrockets.