• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

This 71-Million-Year-Old Ammonite Is Also A Rare And Iridescent Gemstone

November 13, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Lovers of all things colorful and sparkly are in for a treat with an unusual variety of ammonite that’s set to go to auction later this month. The “gem” of an ammonite dates back 71 million years, and comes with a curious coating of ammolite, giving it a dazzling rainbow iridescence.

“A ‘Gem’ Ammonite in Matrix from the Bearpaw Formation in Alberta, Canada dates to the Cretaceous some 71 million years ago and exhibits superb iridescence,” say Heritage ahead of their Nature & Science Auction taking place on November 20. “It is a top representation of the Placenticeras costatum variety, which accounts for less than 10 percent of the Ammonites found in the singular locality.”

Advertisement

According to the American Gem Trade Association, ammolite is one of the world’s rarest gemstones. Ammonite fossils have been found across the globe, but the gemstone variety has so far only been attributed to the Bearpaw Geological Formation in Alberta, Canada. It was classed as a gemstone by the World Jewellery Confederation back in 1981, and is relatively soft on the hardness scale with a Mohs of 3.5 to 4 – not to be confused with toughness, which is a whole different thing in the world of minerals.

“This extraordinary piece [weighs] 24 kilograms (52.8 pounds) and offers superb color and an incredible matrix in both size and shape,” says Heritage. “The vibrant fossil measures 10 inches (25 centimeters) at maximum diameter and is visually stunning with a myriad of vivid reds, oranges, golds and greens, as well as the rarer purples and blues.” 

The ammolite ammonite joins a host of curious artifacts on sale at the Science & Nature Auction, including a 125-kilogram (275-pound) Siderite meteorite retrieved from a hotspot for meteorite hunters in Kansas. There’s also a fossil fish mosaic triptych from the Green River Formation Lagerstätte, Wyoming – with specimens dating back 50 million years – and a rare gold nugget from Alaska.

It’s been a big month for auction news, with a slice of mold medallion fetching a record-breaking $76,000 at Bonham’s History Of Science And Technology sale on October 23. And who could forget the ground-shaking sale of Apex the stegosaurus? A dinosaur that went for an eye-watering $44.6 million at auction in July, topping the previous record holder – Stan the T. rex – by over $10 million. 

Advertisement

Incredible stuff, but we might have to stick to the museum gift shops for now.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Cricket-Manchester test likely to be postponed after India COVID-19 case
  2. EU to attend U.S. trade meeting put in doubt by French anger
  3. Soccer-West Ham win again, Leicester and Napoli falter
  4. Was Jesus A Hallucinogenic Mushroom? One Scholar Certainly Thought So

Source Link: This 71-Million-Year-Old Ammonite Is Also A Rare And Iridescent Gemstone

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • What Astrobiology Might Tell Us About What Aliens May Look Like
  • Voyager: An Inside Look At NASA’s Longest-Running Mission With Someone There From The Start
  • Meet Alba: The World’s Only Known Albino Orangutan Still Living In Borneo
  • Yikes! Baby African Social Spiders Filmed Eating Their Moms Start-To-Finish For The First Time
  • Why Is The Great Rift Valley So Important In Our Understanding Of Human Evolution?
  • 6th Strongest Earthquake On Record – An Incredible 8.8 Magnitude – Triggers Tsunamis And Volcanic Eruption
  • Avoid These 7 Common Objects That Can “Wreck” Your Wi-Fi Signal
  • “The Blob” Triggered The Largest Single-Species Event In Modern History, Killing 4 Million Seabirds
  • Someone Invited The Internet To Give “One Good Reason” The Magnet Truck Won’t Work, And They Absolutely Delivered
  • Earth’s Most Show-Stopping Electrical Storm Sees 280 Lightning Bolts An Hour
  • “Hot Rock” Under Appalachians Traveled From Greenland To US At 20 Kilometers Per Million Years – And Is Still Moving
  • Scientists Succeed In Capturing Elusive “Ghost Particles” Escaping Nuclear Reactor
  • Just How Many “Sixth Senses” Do We Have, Anyway?
  • No Life But Lots Of Water – Latest Observations From Controversial Planet K2-18b
  • Is The Shroud Of Turin Real Or Fake?
  • Memories Of Places “Drift” In The Brain – Even When The Environment Doesn’t Change
  • People Are Just Realizing That One Horse Is More Powerful Than One Horsepower
  • For 100 Years, A Stable 20-Electron Ferrocene Molecule Was Thought “Improbable” – Until Now
  • “I Saved A PNG Image To A Bird”: YouTuber Stores 176KB Drawing Of A Bird Inside A Bird’s Song
  • The Falkland Islands Wolf: The Tragic Tale Of The First Known Canid Humans Drove To Extinction
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version