Mosasaur Fossil Tooth and Tourmaline Necklace

Insouciant Studios "Mosasaur Fossil Tooth and Tourmaline" Necklace featuring a real fossil Mosasaur Fossil Tooth suspended from a lovely handmade chain of natural color-matched tourmalines. 14k Gold Filled construction & Lobster clasp. This is a feminine and understated piece, very elegant, for all that it tells a rich story of deep time through both fossils and minerals. Mosasaurs were active marine predators during the Cretaceous period, from 145-65 million years ago. During the last 20 million years of the Cretaceous, they were the apex predator in marine environments, and ate anything and everything they could. They went extinct, along with many other species, during the K-T extinction event that marks the end of the Cretaceous and the beginning of the Tertiary.

Measurements
Total Length 22 1/16 inches (57 cm)
Fossil Tooth 7/8 inch long (2.1 cm)

Materials
Tourmaline [(Na, Ca)(Fe, Mg, Al, Li)3Al6(BO3)3 Si6)18(OH)4] is a highly variable mineral with a hardness of 7 to 7.5 on the Mohs scale. It occurs in many colors, including black, blue, green, pink, and colorless. The color is often zoned (more than one color in a crystal or gem). It is commonly associated with quartz and potassium feldspar, and is structurally related to beryl, cordierite, and dioptase. It is one of the few common Boron minerals. [Mineralogy, Perkins]