PIETERSITE (A GUIDE to...)

Pietersite isaVariety of the semi-precious gemstone, Tiger Eye.
Pietersite and Tiger Eye are NOT the same stone.
I have observed numerous items on okay being called Pietersite that (I feel) are not. So far, this error has not been intentional as far as I can tell. However, it happens enough thatsome type of explanation/reference is needed.
Currently (June, 2007), there are only two known sources of Pietersite: Namibia, Africa andthe Hunan and Henan Provinces ofChina. (Pietersite was initially discovered by Sid Pieters in the early 1960's, and the Chinese formhas generally been said to have beendiscoveredas early as the 1950's, but did not gee to market until 1997.)
China Pietersite: Africa Pietersite:
The two sources producevery similarly structured Pietersite, but the colors and hues tend to be somewhat different.The African Pietersite most often has very deep/midnight blues with some gold and less often red. The China variety has multiple golds and reds with ablue that is lighter when present. However, both varieties always have a high level of CHATOYANCY,regardless of the colors present.Chatoyancy is the appearance of a bright glimmering, subtly changing color effect in the various color segments, as the gemstone is viewed from various angles. As the stone is rotated the glimmering color variations often fade to a much darker version of the color and/or even a dark brown or black color.
The most obvious difference between Pietersite and Tiger Eye (also written as Tiger's Eye or TigerEye) is the fiberous structure of each. While the fibers in Tiger Eye produce long continuous bands of color (usually gold/gold-brown/deep brown colored bands), Pietersite always has a Brecciated fiberous structure. This means that the fiber bands of color in Pietersite are short segments of color, and/or even swirls and short linear segmentsof fibers existing in many directions/colors at once andside by side. This structure is produced by various of the earth's geological processes breaking-up/forming/re-forming the fibersmaking up Pietersite.
Below I've chosen close-up picturesof: Left, Africa Pietersite; Middle,Tiger Eye (South Africa); and Right, China Pietersite toillustrate thevisual differences betweenPietersite and Tiger Eye, and alsoyou can see the general coloration differences between thetwo types of Pietersite.

See my okay guide on Tiger Eye for a general discussion of various varieties of Tiger Eye.
For a veryinterestingQ