THIS LISTING IS ONLY FOR PENDANT ON A 16" BROWN LEATHER CORD W/STERLING FINDINGS
Pendant Teardrop 1½” x ¾” - Matching earrings are available for purchase on the earrings page.
Before this land was desert it was water. Ancient seas covered the American Southwest for hundreds of millions of years shallow warm oceans that left behind the copper and phosphate deposits that would eventually become turquoise. This stone carries that history on its surface. The oval Tyrone turquoise cabochon measures 1½” x ¾” bright aqua-teal ground swept through with bold rivers of warm amber and gold matrix that move across the stone like waterways seen from altitude, like the memory of currents that ran through this earth long before anything walked on it.
The matrix in this stone is exceptional not fine tracery but broad, confident veining that claims as much of the surface as the turquoise itself, the two materials in honest conversation about what this ground is made of. Set in oxidized .925 sterling silver with a full hand-twisted rope border, the oval bezel holds the composition with quiet authority. The pendant arrives on a 16” brown leather cord that keeps it at the collarbone close, warm, and entirely present.
Details:
Stone: Tyrone Turquoise · Origin: New Mexico · Matrix: Brown Matrix · Metal: Custom Sterling Silver · Pendant Setting: 1½” x ¾” Teardrop · One of a Kind with Makers Mark
Made in Taos by a Taosena.
Some Jewelry is made. Some is found. At Fire & Stone, it's both.
Ancient Waters - Tyrone Turquoise Necklace
The Tyrone mine sits in Grant County in the high desert of southwestern New Mexico ancient Mimbres and Apache country, land that has been worked and revered for over a thousand years. One of the largest open-pit copper operations in North America, the mine has yielded turquoise as a byproduct of that excavation for well over a century, producing stones of remarkable color complexity and character.
What makes Tyrone turquoise exceptional and increasingly rare is its color diversity. Where many turquoise mines produce stones of relatively uniform hue, Tyrone yields a wide spectrum: sky blue, teal, green-blue, and rich matrix patterns in brown, tan, and gold that reflect the iron and copper-rich host rock of the region. Spider web matrix Tyrone where fine veins of host rock form a delicate lace-like network across the stone’s surface is among the most prized formations in the collector world, requiring a precise mineral environment to form and impossible to replicate or enhance.
Natural, untreated Tyrone turquoise is increasingly difficult to source. The open-pit copper operation that produces it prioritizes copper extraction turquoise is recovered incidentally, in limited and unpredictable quantities. What reaches the hands of silversmiths is a small fraction of what the earth produces. This stone comes from New Mexico ground, worked by New Mexico hands, and set in silver in Taos as close to its origin as a stone can get without still being in the earth.
