Mother-of-pearl is the hard, silvery, internal layer of several kinds of shells, especially oysters, the large varieties of which in the Indian Seas secrete this coat of sufficient thickness to ...

By secreting layers of aragonite and conchiolin, the same substances that are in its calcium carbonate shell, the mollusc creates a material called nacre, commonly known as mother-of-pearl. The oyster ...

This creates a material called nacre, also known as mother-of-pearl, which encases the irritant and protects the mollusc from it. When pearls are cultured commercially an irritant is manually inserted ...