Peridot has been valued for centuries and comes in various shades of green, with the most desired being the bright chartreuse to near apple greens. These intensely bright greens can be seen in our Mesa Verde® Peridot, which happens to be sourced right here in the United States.
Can you tell us a little about the source of this material?
Mesa Verde® Peridot is unearthed by Apache miners from the summit and sides of Peridot Mesa, a flat-topped basalt rock hill with steep sides in the San Carlos Reservation. The gem material is embedded in basalt flows from 10 to 100 feet thick, which is broken up with sledgehammers or dynamite to free the gems. This mine is run strictly by the Apache people and has been a major worldwide producer for decades. In fact, this source has created 75% of the world’s Peridot for many years, so you’ve likely run into this material once or twice before if you love Peridot like we do!
What kinds of sizes, shapes and cutting styles can be found?
This Peridot does not come in crystal form but is rather found in what are called ‘bombs.’ These are roundish pockets that form in the large basalt flow. These ‘bombs’, or pockets, can get larger than a softball and are completely full of peridot. The challenge is most of the Peridot inside is ‘sugary’, meaning most is like a coarse sand. Within this, you find small nodules that are large enough to cut fine gems from. We have noticed this Arizona material produces the best melee (1-3mm) sizes up to 2.5ct size stones, and a select few that are larger stones.
We offer a vast variety of cutting styles in Mesa Verde Peridot® including melee, small to medium size standard shapes such as rounds, baguettes, emerald cuts, princess cuts, cushions, and pears.
We also offer more creative styles such as beads, half-moons, hexagons, mini cabochons, carved scarab cabochons, and one of our signature cutting styles: GeoCuts™. While we do offer some free form or individual cut stones in this material, many of the styles listed are offered in calibrated sizes so you can utilize in any repeatable jewelry designs you may have.
