Pietersite was discovered by Sid Pieters in 1962 while he was prospecting some farmland in Namibia, Africa. The mineral was named after him as pietersite. Currently the two sources of pietersite are in Africa and China.

The fibrous structure in pietersite had got folded, stressed and fractured by the Earth’s geologic processes. It gets re-cemented together later by quartz. Crystals thus ‘brecciated’ create a finished product with multiple colors, hues and exhibit chatoyancy.

Pietersite exhibits the lovely chatoyancy of tiger’s eye, but it is not found in continuously structured bands. It rather forms swirls, swathes and fibrous segments. Thus the structure of the fibrous streaks in pietersite may appear chaotic, and exist in many directions.

African pietersite has a wide rage of colors including blues, golds and reds. They may appear together or alone. Blue is the rarest color, followed by red. The blues range from a baby blue to dark midnight hue. Golds can vary from very light to very deep and rich with a tint of red.

All the fibrous color variations exhibit chatoyancy, with the changing shimmer of bright color moving along the surface of a gemstone, when viewed from various angles.

Chinese pietersite exhibiting primarily golden and bronze colors was discovered in 1993 and came to the market in 1997.