A "foundation" is the basis for almost anything that is accomplished. The "foundation" of many gemstone necklaces is a pendant that is the highlight of the piece. The pendant can be either a single fashioned piece or a grouping of pieces that together form a larger pendant. The pendant may also be a larger piece of the same gemstone as the rest of the necklace, incorporated into the total design. The following are some of the new "foundation" pendants that have been made recently. The "shield" design or type appears to be quite popular with many. Some of these shield pendants have a 'top hole' thus requiring the use of some kind of a bail. Others are drilled across the top, so can be strung directly onto the necklace wire with other stones. Either style, can be wire-wrapped with amazing results. They can also be hung directly on a chain with the use of bails. The following are all 'top hole' drilled.
Russian Unakite
First discovered in the United States in the Unakas mountains of North Carolina, unakite is an altered granite composed of pink orthoclase feldspar, green epidote, and generally colorless quartz. It exists in various shades of green and pink and is usually mottled in appearance. IGood quality unakite is considered a gemstone, with the largest mines now being in Russia.
Australian Mookaite
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Mookaite is the common, or popular, name for the rock with the geological name Windalia Radiolarite, being a fine grained, silicified and multi-coloured, radiolarian siltstone, found in outcrops, principally on Mooka Station on the west side of Kennedy Range in Western Australia. Mookaite can also be found in the northwester United States in the Agate and Jasper fields.
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Norwegian Larvakite
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Larvikite comes from Larvik, Norway. Used widely in building constructions, Larvikite is a gray color with black markings, reknown for the occasional flash of light/fire with a hint of blue. It has recently become a very popular stone in jewelry. Considered a Monzonite, Larvikite and relative Labradorite are both notable for the presence of handsome, thumbnail-sized crystals of feldspar. These feldspars are known as ternary because they contain significant components of all three end-member feldspars thus giving the characteristic silver blue sheen (Schiller effect) on polished surfaces.
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South African Blue Tiger Eye
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Tiger's Eye is a chatoyant gemstone that is usually a metamorphic rock that is a golden to red-brown color, with a silky luster. A member of the Quartz group, Blue Tiger Eye is a classic example of a pseudomorphous replacement by silica of fibrous crocidolite or blue asbestos. An incompletely silicified blue variant is called Hawk's eye.
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Indiana Rainbow Fluorite
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Fluorite (also called fluorspar) is a halide mineral composed of calcium fluoride. The word fluorite is derived from the Latin root fluo, meaning "to flow" because the mineral has a relatively low melting point and was used as an important flux in smelting. Fluorite gave its name to the phenomenon of fluorescence, which is prominent in fluorites from certain locations, due to certain impurities in the crystal. Fluprote can come in all colors of the rainbow depending on impurities. When many different impurities occur as in the Indiana Fluorite fields, we have a variety called Rainbow Fluorite.
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Look for these in new necklace designs in the future or they can be obtained for you to incorporate them into your own design for you necklace makers out there.
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