Yes, it turns: experimental evidence of pearl rotation during its formation. - Archive ouverte HAL
Journal Articles Royal Society Open Science Year : 2015

Yes, it turns: experimental evidence of pearl rotation during its formation.

Yannick Guegen
  • Function : Author
Yann Czorlich
  • Function : Author
Max Mastail
  • Function : Author
Bruno Le Tohic
  • Function : Author
Didier Defay
  • Function : Author
Pierre Lyonnard
  • Function : Author
Damien Marigliano
  • Function : Author
Jean-Pierre Gauthier
  • Function : Author
Hubert Bari
  • Function : Author
Sébastien Chabrier

Abstract

Cultured pearls are human creations formed by inserting a nucleus and a small piece of mantle tissue into a living shelled mollusc, usually a pearl oyster. Although many pearl observations intuitively suggest a possible rotation of the nucleated pearl inside the oyster, no experimental demonstration of such a movement has ever been done. This can be explained by the difficulty of observation of such a phenomenon in the tissues of a living animal. To investigate this question of pearl rotation, a magnetometer system was specifically engineered to register magnetic field variations with magnetic sensors from movements of a magnetic nucleus inserted in the pearl oyster. We demonstrated that a continuous movement of the nucleus inside the oyster starts after a minimum of 40 days post-grafting and continues until the pearl harvest. We measured a mean angular speed of 1.27. min(-1) calculated for four different oysters. Rotation variability was observed among oysters and may be correlated to pearl shape and defects. Nature's ability to generate so amazingly complex structures like a pearl has delivered one of its secrets.
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hal-01681957 , version 1 (05-02-2021)

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Yannick Guegen, Yann Czorlich, Max Mastail, Bruno Le Tohic, Didier Defay, et al.. Yes, it turns: experimental evidence of pearl rotation during its formation.. Royal Society Open Science, 2015, 2 (7), pp.150144. ⟨10.1098/rsos.150144⟩. ⟨hal-01681957⟩

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