Larimar
blue gemstone from the Dominican Republic
Larimar is the tradename for a rare blue variety of the silicate mineral pectolite found only in the Dominican Republic, around the city of Barahona. Its coloration varies from bluish white, light-blue, light-green, teal, green-blue, turquoise blue, turquoise green, turquoise blue-green, deep green, dark green, to deep blue, dark blue and purple, violet and indigo and the larimar can come in many varieties and color mixes.
History
Dominican Republic's Ministry of Mining records show that Father Miguel Domingo Fuertes Loren of the Barahona Parish requested permission on 22 November 1916 to explore and exploit the mine of a certain blue rock that he had discovered. Pectolites were not yet known in Dominican Republic, and the request was rejected.
Miguel Méndez and Peace Corps volunteer Norman Rilling rediscovered Larimar in 1974 on a beach at the foot of the Bahoruco Mountain Range, the coastal province of Barahona. Natives believed that the stone came from the sea, and they called the gem Blue Stone. Méndez took his young daughter's name Larissa and the Spanish word for sea (mar) and formed Larimar, to suggest the colors of the Caribbean Sea where it was found. The few stones that they found were alluvial sediment, washed into the sea by the Bahoruco River. An upstream search revealed the in situ outcrops in the range and soon the Los Chupaderos mine was formed.
Geology
Larimar is a type of pectolite or a rock composed largely of pectolite, an acid silicate hydrate of calcium and sodium.
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This entry incorporates text from “Larimar” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.