jaspers---Continued from the newsletter tab....
Noreena Jasper Slab
Noreena Jasper Slab
Noreena Jasper Slab
Noreena Jasper: It comes from Pilbara Region of Western Australia. It is silicified mudstone that is renowned for its patterns of rusty red or somewhat mustard yellow and cream tints. It is estimated that Noreena Jasper is around 2687-2765 million years old.
Ocean Jasper Slab
Noreena Jasper Slab
Noreena Jasper Slab
Ocean jasper: Ocean Jasper is a trade name for a multicolored stone from Madagascar, typically with spherical patterning. Although commonly described as orbicular jasper, the most recent research suggests it is the mineral chalcedony instead. Ocean Jasper only comes from one place in the world, northwestern Madagascar. It is found in the Analalava district of the Sofia region in the former province of Mahajanga. There are actually two different deposits, about ten miles apart: Continued...
Ocean Jasper Cabs
Noreena Jasper Slab
Ocean Jasper Cabs
1: Near the village of Marovato, directly on the shoreline, known for its multicolored orbs, translucency, and druzy. (The name Marovato means "many stones" in Malagasy.)
2: Near the village of Kabamby, about a mile and a half inland, known for its consistent green and yellow colors, opaqueness, and geometric patterning created by contact between orbs. (The name "Kabamby" does not translate into anything else in Malagasy.)
Oolitic Slab
Orbicular Jasper Cab
Ocean Jasper Cabs
Oolitic red jasper: this hematite-pigmented jasper, which I have found constituting beach pebbles along the shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior could be fashioned into striking beads, earrings, small pendants, etc. This rock certainly has a good potential so far as use as a gem-rock IF the source rock is found to be available in quantities sufficient for economical recovery.
Opal Jasper Cabs
Orbicular Jasper Cab
Orbicular Jasper Cab
Opal Jasper: Opal is a hydrated amorphous form of silica. Because of its amorphous character, it is classed as a mineraloid, unlike crystalline forms of silica, which are classed as minerals. It is deposited at a relatively low temperature and may occur in the fissures of almost any kind of rock, being most commonly found with limonite, sandstone, jasper's and rhyolite. There are two broad classes of opal: precious and common. Precious opal displays play-of-color (iridescence), common opal does not. The jasper's having an opal mix is almost always common opal.
Orbicular Jasper Cab
Orbicular Jasper Cab
Orbicular Jasper Cab
Orbicular jasper: A variety of jasper with sporadic orbicules, roughly spherical zones, with one or more colors different from the color of the main mass. In highly silicified rhyolite or tuff, quartz and feldspar crystallize in radial aggregates of needle-like crystals which provide the basis or seed for the orbicular structure seen in this kind of jasper. One noteworthy source is Morgan Hill, Santa Clara County, California. See also kinradite, oregonite, Owyhee jasper, ocean jasper and poppy-patterned jasper (etc.).
Oregonite Slab
Outback Jasper Slab
Outback Jasper Slab
Oregonite: trade name sometimes given to kinradite from the area near Grants Pass, Oregon.
Outback Jasper Slab
Outback Jasper Slab
Outback Jasper Slab
Outback Jasper: It occurs as a narrow seam within an outcrop of banded chert in dwest region of Western Australia near the small gold mining centre of Payne's Find.
Owyhee Jasper Slab
Outback Jasper Slab
Pastelite Jasper Slab
Owyhee jasper: (pronounced Oh-WAH-hee), comes from the rugged Owyhee mountain area situated on the Idaho-Oregon border, just south of Homedale, Idaho. Owyhee Jasper is another one of the very popular picture jaspers, known for their depictions of mountain or desert scenery, with or without the "blue sky"! There are now about 6 different varieties that fall under the Owyhee Jasper name.
Pastelite Jasper Slab
Petrified Wood Thick Slab
Pastelite Jasper Slab
Pastelite jasper: Is characterized by pastel colors --e.g., pinks, light greens and tans -- that appear as wavy lines in articles fashioned from it. This jasper is rather widespread in western United States.
Peanut Wood Slab
Petrified Wood Thick Slab
Petrified Wood Thick Slab
Peanut Wood Jasper: Peanut wood is a variety of petrified wood that is usually dark brown to black in color. It is recognized by its white-to-cream-color markings that are ovoid in shape and about the size of a peanut. It received its name from these peanut-size markings. It is a fossil gemmaterial from Western Australia where the Conifor trees fell into the rivers were eaten by shipworms leaving boreholes that werefilled in. Peanut Wood Jasper can include other stones such as quartz, pyrite or even opal.
Petrified Wood Thick Slab
Petrified Wood Thick Slab
Petrified Wood Thick Slab
Petrified wood: Much petrified wood is largely, if not wholly, jasper; see Xyloid jasper and FOSSILIFEROUS ROCKS entry.
Picture Jasper Cab
Apache Picture Jasper Slab
Apache Picture Jasper Slab
Picture jasper: The name applied to scenic jasper included in the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals of the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institute), Washington, D.C.
Apache Picture Jasper Slab
Apache Picture Jasper Slab
Apache Picture Jasper Slab
Apache jasper is called a scenic or picture jasper. But it is actually a rhyolite found in the Mimbres Valley, New Mexico.
Polychrome Jasper Slab
Apache Picture Jasper Slab
Polychrome Jasper Slab
Polychrome Jasper: It is a relatively new find and has only been made available since 2008. It's found in the deserts of Madagascar, but the deposit is very small.
Poppy Jasper Cab
Pudding-stone Slab
Polychrome Jasper Slab
Poppy-patterned jasper (poppy jasper and poppy stone): A trade name(s) for orbicular jasper that contains sporadic relatively bright red, orange or yellow orbicules, typically within a yellowish green background, from the Paradise Valley and Llagas Creek, California.
Pudding-stone Slab
Pudding-stone Slab
Pudding-stone Slab
Pudding-stone Jasper: A conglomerate, which is also denominated, pebble jasper conglomerate.
Riband Slab
Pudding-stone Slab
Pudding-stone Slab
Riband jasper (also ribbon jasper): A jasper type with bands of different colors. Not to be confused with jasper that is banded with iron or chalcedony.
Rosetta Jasper Cabs
Picture Jasper-UT Slab
Rosetta Jasper Cabs
Rosetta Jasper: An aggregate of micrograndular quartz and/or chalcedony and other minerals from Africa.
Russian Jasper Cabs
Picture Jasper-UT Slab
Rosetta Jasper Cabs
Russian jasper: Is an opaque rock of virtually any color stemming from the mineral content of the original sediments or ash. There are some good green minerals from here too.
Picture Jasper-UT Slab
Picture Jasper-UT Slab
Picture Jasper-UT Slab
Scenic jasper (picture jasper): Typically light tan jasper with dark brown lines that, when cut in certain directions, exhibit patterns that resemble natural panoramas of, for example, rolling topography and/or shorelines. A particularly noteworthy example is the jasperized volcanic ash, sometimes referred to as Biggs jasper, from Biggs Junction, Sherman County, Oregon as well as Dechutes, Succor Creek and Owyhee.
Stone Canyon Slab
Swiss Lapis Dyed Cab
Picture Jasper-UT Slab
Stone Canyon Jasper: A brecciated jasper yellow to mustard yellow jasper glued together with nice white base agate. It may also contain tan, maroon, or green material often in the same piece. It is found in the coastal mountains of central California on a private ranch out side of Parkfield.
Succor Creek Slab
Swiss Lapis Dyed Cab
Swiss Lapis Dyed Cab
Succor Creek Jasper: Succor Creek is a 69.4-mile-long tributary of the Snake River in the states of Idaho and Oregon. The creek begins in the Owyhee Mountains in Owyhee County, Idaho.
Swiss Lapis Dyed Cab
Swiss Lapis Dyed Cab
Swiss Lapis Dyed Cab
Swiss lapis: blue (apparently dyed) jasper, sometimes marketed as a lapis lazuli substitute.
Vabanite Slab
Variegated Tumbled
Variegated Tumbled
Vabanite: Reddish brown jasper with yellow flecks and/or streaks from California
Variegated Tumbled
Variegated Tumbled
Variegated Tumbled
Variegated jasper: The name sometimes given to rather high-quality jasper from the San Francisco region, California.
Wascoite Slab
Variegated Tumbled
Wildhorse Canyon Rough
Wascoite: Wascoite is generally thought of as a picture jasper. Formed in concentric, irregular circles with shades of tan, lavender, yellow, pink, and red. There was also a brown & white variety, referred to as a bedded jasper from the Wasco, OR.
Wildhorse Canyon Rough
MT Wonderstone Rhyolite Rough
Wildhorse Canyon Rough
Wildhorse Canyon Jasper: It's Picture Jasper with scenic features of blue, brown and tan. From Owyhee county in southern Idaho.
Willow Creek Slab
MT Wonderstone Rhyolite Rough
MT Wonderstone Rhyolite Rough
Wilkite (Willow Creek jasper): Willow Creek Jasper is known for its subtle pastel colors of yellow, purple, pink, and green; and it’s streamer patterns, and egg or orb patterns. Premium quality Willow Creek is unmatched. It takes an extreme high gloss… like liquid glass. People who have worked Willow Creek say it has pastel colors and is somewhat soft and delicate in nature…perhaps, but top premium quality Willow has dramatic coloring, and incredible patterning. Along with Bruneau Jasper, I consider it the purest porcelain of the porcelain jasper's.
MT Wonderstone Rhyolite Rough
MT Wonderstone Rhyolite Rough
MT Wonderstone Rhyolite Rough
Wonderstone: a silicified rhyolite rock that is also called rhyolite jasper. The Montana Rhyolite Jasper material below is from a quarry just south of the Sweetwater Road between the abandoned Anderson Ranch and the Ruby Reservoir, SW of Alder.
Xyloid Jasper Cabs
Xyloid Jasper Cabs
Xyloid Jasper Cabs
Xyloid jasper: petrified wood that consists largely of jasper - i.e., jasperized wood
Zebra Jasper Rough
Xyloid Jasper Cabs
Xyloid Jasper Cabs
Zebra jasper: dark brown jasper with lighter brown to nearly off-white steaks from India and South Africa.
Porcelain Slab to the Right, Mexico
USES: (GemRocks, Ref-1) Jasper has found widespread use in jewelry and for fashioning ornaments since its early use as beads and for seals. Black jasper was used in Roman times. Most "Indian beggar beads" consist at least in part of diversely colored jasper; many carvings are made of jasper.
OCCURRENCES: Much jasper appears to represent replaced limestone or dolostone -- in some places, extensive beds of those rocks. It also occurs as a veins and nodules and otherwise configured components, commonly as part of the gangue of mineral deposits that appear to have formed as the result of hydrothermal or metasomatic processes.
NOTEWORTHY LOCALITIES: Merrill's catalog lists nine specimens in the U.S. National Museum collections include the following localities: Egypt (Nile River), England (Hertfordshire), India, Saxony, Siberia, and "Locality not recorded." And, that list is fairly exemplary of the rather non-definitive locality labels I have seen on numerous specimens of jasper in several museums and private collections. In addition, it is common to see one locality listed for several diverse samples -- e.g., I suspect that labels reading simply San Bernardino California, indicate only that the specimens came from somewhere within the general area along Route 40 between Ladle and Newberry Springs, California. Special attention is directed to Frondel's (1962) treatment of jasper -- in the Silica Minerals volume of the seventh edition of Dana's "System ..." -- where several localities for diversely colored jasper are recorded.
REMARKS: Jasper is recorded in ancient manuscripts (e.g., Exodus XXVII: 20). A velvety black variety of jasper, called Lydian stone or basanite, was formerly used as a touchstone -- i.e., a stone whose smooth surface when scratched with, for example, gold or silver or certain alloys, exhibits streaks that can be compared to streaks of known metals or alloys, and thus provide a means of identification, including even measurements of such things as the material's gold content. Red jasper and yellow jasper are thought by some scholars to have occupied positions one and ten, respectively, in Aaron's breastplate.
SIMULANTS(similar to):
***Glass - Marilyn Jobe of Ellenton, Florida has fashioned beads from glass that closely resemble brecciated jasper- [inferior hardness].
***Iris jasper- an Iimori glass - [vitreous luster; inferior hardness]. ***Jasperware(jasper ware) - Wedgwood china that resembles jasper, which has been molded into, for example, cameo-appearing pieces used in pendants, brooches, and earrings.
***Porcelain jasper: "Hard, naturally baked, impure clay or porcellanite, which, because of its red color, resembles jasper" (Mitchell, 1985) - [Although appearance may suffice, non-macroscopic means are often required.]. Image to the right.
Jasper in Montana:
1. Montana City, miles S. of Helena.
2. Blackfoot River.
3. Henderson Gulch,: Dendritic Jasper (BGMS Files)
4. Pryor Mountains.
5. Spire Rock Travertine.
6. Montana Agate Areas.
7. Tree-Bark Rhyolite Jasper.
References & Resources:
1. GemRocks, http://stoneplus.cst.cmich.edu/Default.htm
2. GIA, Jasper, https://www.gia.edu/
3. Google; Pinterest, Jasper rock
4. Marco Campos-Venuti , “Genesis and Classification of Agates and Jaspers: a New Theory, 2015.
5. Polk, Patti; “Collecting Agates and Jaspers of North America”, 2013
6. Gibbs, Ron; “Agates and Jaspers”, 2009
7. Zeitner, June Culp; “Gem and Lapidary Materials”, 1996.
8. Rock & Gem Magazine, Dec. 2013 and Mar. 2015.
9. MinDat; Kaleidoscope Jasper https://www.mindat.org/forum.php? read,62,396002,396223,quote=1
10. Ream, Lanny; “Gem Trails of Idaho & Western Montana”, 2012
11. Hodges, Montana; “Rockhounding Montana”, 2016
12. eBay, “Jasper”
13. Gem Shop, https://thegemshop.com/pages/sonora-dendritic-location
14. Google; “World of Jaspers” by Hans Gamma
