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Turquoise Jewelry

Turquoise is prized for its attractive color, which is most often an intense medium blue or a greenish blue, and its ancient heritage. Turquoise is used in a great variety of jewelry styles. It is perhaps most closely associated with southwest and Native American jewelry, but it is also used in many sleek, modern styles. Some turquoise contains a matrix of dark brown markings, which provides an interesting contrast to the gemstone’s bright blue color. Turquoise is found in only a few places on earth, and the American Southwest has one of the largest deposits.

Turquoise jewelry comes in many different shapes and styles, to traditional Native American pieces, or ones that are replicated to look like them to more modern pieces crafted by modern artisans. Turquoise forms when water percolates through rocks that contain copper, aluminum and other minerals. A chemical reaction takes place that results in deposits of what we know as turquoise which takes millions of years. The blue color of turquoise is present because of the oxidized copper, more aluminum will create a greener color.

The dark marks in turquoise jewelry are appealing to many people and are caused by the other rocks that the turquoise was embedded with. Those dots are called the matrix and when the stone is cut those dots often remain. Black dots are from iron pyrite, yellow ones are from rhyolite and brown ones are probably from iron oxide. Spider webbing is a term used to describe some matrixes that have many thin lines throughout the piece. The different characteristics and colors of turquoise make it very popular because no two pieces are exactly alike.

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