Unakite heart pendant - tumbled stone pendant

This piece of jewelry is a pendant made of unakite, a rock composed of granite with quartz, orthoclase (pink feldspar), and epidote (green). Despite its beauty, unakite is rarely used in jewelry and is therefore relatively unknown.

While our unakite comes from Norway, this rock is primarily known in the United States, with deposits in the Unakas Mountains in North Carolina being particularly important, as the rock owes its name to these mountains. However, there are several other unakite deposits throughout the world, including finds in China, Brazil, and Africa.

Tumbled stones
Tumbled stones are stones that have been ground and polished in a tumbler.
For this purpose, the raw stones are tumbled with abrasives in a drum for several weeks, during which the sharp corners and edges are ground off.
Increasingly finer grains of abrasive are used, from very coarse to very fine, so that the stones acquire a smooth and shiny surface over time.
Finally, the stones are polished in the drum with special polishing powder to achieve a mirror shine.