Pearlsofnature - length of a pearl

Definition of a pearl:

A pearl is a hard, generally spherical object produced within the soft tissue of a living shelled mollusc. Just like the shell of a mollusc, a pearl is made up of calcium carbonate in minute crystalline form, which has been deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other shapes of pearls occur.

The finest quality natural pearls have been highly valued as gemstones and objects of beauty for many centuries, and because of this, the word pearl has become a metaphor for something very rare, fine, admirable, and valuable. Pearls that are considered to be of gemstone quality are almost always nacreous and iridescent, like the interior of the shell that produces them. However, almost all species of shelled molluscs are capable of producing pearls of lesser shine or less spherical shape. Although these may also be referred to as “pearls” by geological labs and are formed in the same way, most of them have no value, except as curios.

Almost any shelled mollusc can produce some kind of “pearl” when an irritating microscopic object becomes trapped within the mollusc’s mantle folds, but the great majority of these “pearls” are not valued as gemstones. Nacreous pearls, the best-known and most commercially significant pearls, are primarily produced by two groups of mollusc bivalves or clams. A nacreous pearl is made from layers of nacre, by the same living process as is used in the secretion of the mother of pearl, which lines the shell.

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