Oyster biggest pearl

Oyster biggest pearl,Researchers in England say an ancient oyster (how old is it?) could hold the world's biggest pearl (how big do they say it might be?). The oyster, which is 10 times the size of a regular one, was apparently found by fishermen in the Solent (what is that?). Experts plan to scan the oyster (using what?) to see if it contains a pearl How would you like to have a pearl the size of a golf ball? That is how big the pearl inside a 100-million-year-old oyster found near the Solient, a strait separating mainland England from the Isle of Wight, could be.
The Huffington Post notes that the pearl, while huge, and likely one of the oldest on Earth, is unlikely to top the world’s largest, the clam-produced Pearl of Allah, which weighs an astonishing 14 pounds, and has an estimated worth of $60 million.


The gigantic oyster fossil was accidentally trawled up by fisherman, and is now housed at the Blue Reef Aquarium in Portsmouth, England, where it will soon undergo an MRI to see if it contains a giant pearl.

The Daily Mail reports that the gigantic fossil is ten times bigger than a regular oyster shell, measuring in (after the mud was washed off) at seven inches wide and three inches thick. A spokesman for the Blue Reef Aquarium told The Daily Mail that:

“It was discovered in the nets of a fishing boat which was dredging here in the Solent. When the fishermen came back to port they thought it was real, but when they picked it up, cleaned it, and had a closer look they could tell it was a fossil. It had completely turned to stone.”
Pristine tropical waters of the Palawan nurture the world’s largest pearl-bearing oyster, the gold-lipped Pinctada maxima oyster. A rich diversity of life, including rare and endangered species endemic only to the region, together with modern pearl farming technology, has enabled a unique partnership between man and nature to create the rare golden South Sea pearl.All these factors and the sheer beauty of a South Sea Golden Pearl let former President Fidel V Ramos to declare the South Sea Pearl as the National Jewel in 1996.I know, I learned a lot from that trip to the Palawan Pearl Farms. But, other than all that cool information, nothing beats being able to see the pearl technicians at work, and seeing how truly magical this whole process and operation is.
What is a pearl? A pearl is mostly aragonite crystals, a form of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) which also makes up other marine organisms from coral to sea urchins. Pearls are produced by a variety of mollusks in warm fresh and sea waters around the world. They appear in a wide range of colors, shapes, and sizes


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How do pearls form? The mollusk protects its delicate interior by coating foreign objects (usually a tiny piece of shell or parasite) with calcium carbonate, the same substance that lines the inside of their shells. This “seed” grows larger as the mollusk continues to coat it. Among the mollusks that can produce pearls are mussels, oysters, clams, snails, conch, and abalone.



Pearls vary in size from a pin head to pigeon's egg size. The largest ever found, called the Hope Pearl, is 2 inches (5 cm) long, 3.25-4.5 inches (6.5-11.25 cm) in circumference, and weighs 454 carats (about 90 grams). It was named for Henry Philip Hope, one of the owners, who insisted the name be kept as a condition of the sale of the gem (just as he did with the Hope Diamond). It may be seen in the South Kensington Museum in London, the British Museum of Natural History.


Myth
Many people think of wild oysters ingesting a grain of sand as the foreign body which stimulates nacre production.
Living in the sea, oysters are constantly ingesting and expelling sand and irritants.
Only when something becomes lodged - like a piece of shell, bone, coral or parasite does the oyster start nacre production.
A spokesman from the Blue Reef Aquarium said: 'It was discovered in the nets of a fishing boat which was dredging here in the Solent.
'When the fishermen came back to port they thought it was real, but when they picked it up, cleaned it, and had a closer look they could tell it was a fossil.
'It had completely turned to stone.
'A member of the public called and informed us it was on display at a local fishmongers so we called them and they gave it to us to have in the aquarium.
'Oysters can be aged by annual growth rings on their shells and we have counted more than 200 rings on this oyster making it an extremely long-lived individual.
'It's obviously a million-to-one chance that it would contain anything but, if you were to go purely on the dimensions of the shell then you'd be looking at a golf ball-sized pearl.
'We are hoping to have it MRI scanned in the near future to see if it is concealing something.