Gem quality olivine is referred to as peridot, the birthstone of August. Faceted peridot originating from pallasitic meteorites is the most beautiful extraterrestrial semi-precious gem currently known. Extraterrestrial peridot is extremely rare for a variety of reasons. The vast majority of pallasites do not contain highly translucent olivine. Of the pallasites that do, most of their olivine grains exhibit internal fractures; only about one out of a 100 translucent crystals can be faceted into cut gems. Pallasitic peridot originates at the core-mantle boundary of a differentiated asteroid or protoplanet, i.e., an asteroid with a core, mantle and crust. After an enormously energetic collision with another asteroid early in solar system history, the body broke apart. Then the olivine crystals suspended in the iron matrix had to travel at cosmic velocity for hundreds of millions of years before their flaming passage through Earth’s atmosphere. After recovery of the meteorite (a highly uncertain enterprise), the translucent crystals then had to be extracted from their surrounding metallic matrix before faceting. Due to such extreme preconditions, examples of faceted pallasitic peridot usually weigh less than half a carat and now offered is one such example.

Christie's would like to thank Dr. Alan E. Rubin at the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles for his assistance in preparing this catalogue.
4 x 4 x 3mm and 0.46 carats