Six-ton Chinese 'pearl' is World's biggest

Weighing six tons and standing 5ft tall, this luminous pearl may be hard to shift physically speaking – but even with a mammoth £88million price tag it shouldn’t be too hard to find a buyer. The stone, formed mostly of a fluorite mineral, glows green in the dark and is prized more highly than diamonds in China. It was unearthed in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia and took its finders three years to grind the raw gem down to its pearl shape. It has gone on show in Hainan, southern China, to attract buyers and have measurements taken for a world record bid.
It is amazing and glows a blue green in the dark,' remarked one show organiser.

'These pearls are very sought after in China, especially when they are this size.' The luminous stones, sometimes known as a Chintamani, are a wish-fulfilling jewel within the Buddhist religion. Fluorite is well known for the amazing colours it can give out, so much so that it has been given the nickname of 'the most colourful mineral in the world'.

Its unique properties mean that the characteristic of fluorescence, when a material emits light, is named after fluorite itself. Scientists believe that fluorite glows in the dark because of mineral impurities in the lattice that makes up its structure, as well as exposure to radiation from the atmosphere over time. Green colours are slightly rarer than the others and may be due to the presence of rare earth ions such as manganese.

In fluorite, the visible light emitted is most commonly blue, but it can be almost any colour imaginable -like this green pearl -  '.

Fluorite is also sometimes thermoluminescent - meaning it glows when heated. Chintamani s depicted on Tibetan prayer flags and tradition maintains that one attains the Wisdom of Buddha by carrying it while reciting a prayer. Although, such a feat might be too much of a struggle with this stone.

News of the £88m pearl follows the sale last week of the world’s most expensive diamond, which fetched £29million at a Sotheby’s auction in Geneva.

The rectangular rare pink diamond, which weighs 24.78 carats, was bought by the British billionaire jeweller Laurence Graff, 72.

Dubbed 'The King of Bling' - Mr Graff said that he had bought the gem for himself and immediately named it 'The Graff Pink'.

Source: MailOnline