JASPER

( Fr- jaspe; Ger- Jaspis; Nor- jaspis; Rus- )

JASPER (See also CHALCEDONY and CHERT entries.)

A. Jasper toad, top, (height - 7.5 cm) by Gerd Dreher. Betty Llewellyn Collection. (© photo by Jeffrey A. Scovil)

B & C. Orbicular Jasper, center. Left: slab (field of view, width - 13.8 cm). Gilbert Gauthier collection. Right: cabochons (heights - up to 5.3 cm). Don Olson & Associates. This jasper, from Madagascar, is widely marketed as "Ocean jasper." The diversity of patterns exhibited by these cabochons provides examples of the virtually innumerable possibilities lapidaries have when fashioning pieces from this rock. (© photos by Jeffrey A. Scovil)

D. Jasper, bottom. Morrisonite (width - 7.6 cm). Don Olson & Associates. (© photo by Jeffrey A. Scovil)

DESCRIPTION: Dense microcrystalline quartz -- some people describe jasper as similar to chert whereas others compare it to chalcedony; my observations favor the correlation with chert because virtually all of the rock I have seen that has been called or labeled jasper is opaque or subtranslucent in thin splinters and has a dull to pearly luster like chert, which is quite different from the typical translucency and subvitreous luster of most chalcedony. Nonetheless distinguishing certain specimens as one versus the others of these rocks is subjective and based on the experiences of the person naming them.
    Colors - typically red of diverse hues or brown; less commonly green or just about any color, white, gray or black; even less commonly zoned -- e.g., ill-defined stripes that are yellow, bluish, purplish, gray or nearly black -- with some specimens cloudy, variegated, roughly banded and/or spotted. In practice, color leads to some of the problems that arise when one is naming some materials jasper rather than chert: a "rule of thumb" (albeit based on one's subjective sense of and feelings about color) to which I subscribe, is "if the given rock exhibits attractive colors call it jasper, otherwise call it chert."
    H. ~ 7
    S.G. 2.5-2.9
    Light transmission - typically opaque (cf. agate)
    Luster - dull to pearly
    Breakage - subconchoidal fracture.

OTHER NAMES: Nomenclature for diverse jaspers is not well established. -- The chief differences relate to the fact that some definitions are primarily descriptive whereas others are genetically or economically based. In any case, anyone interested in collecting jasper should ever remain aware of the fact that jasper is treated in vast literature of economic geology.

As one might suspect for a gemrock of such widespread occurrence, jasper has been given many names. Adjectives and monomial terms applied have been based on such things as color and arrangement of colors, localities of occurrence, names of persons who were connected with the material, names thought to appeal to potential purchasers of items made from jasper, etc., etc. Several of these names have been recorded by Hart (1927); Dake, Fleener, and Wilson (1938); GIA (1974); and Mitchell (1985). Some examples follow:

Australian jasper - jasper speckled with flecks of red and light grey.
Band (or banded) jasper - an alternative name for riband jasper.
Bayate - local name for brown jasper from Cuba.
Blood jasper - misnomer for bloodstone.
Bruneau jasper - beautifully patterned brown or reddish brown and cream colored jasper from Bruneau River Canyon, Owyhee County, Idaho
"Bumble Bee Jasper" a misnormer -- i.e., NOT jasper; see Appendix A.
Candy rock - see statements under REMARKS subheading in RHYOLITE entry.
Catalinaite (also spelled Catalinite) - Jasper/sardonix pebbles found on shores of Santa Catalina Island in the Gulf of California, Mexico.
Cave Creek jasper - rather bright red jasper from Maricopa County, Arizona.
Chrysojasper - jasper colored with chrysocolla.
Cinnabar matrix - "term applicable to various varieties of minerals containing numerous inclusions of cinnabar but especially to a Mexican variety of jasper." (Shipley, 1951)
Creolite - red and white banded jasper from San Bernardino and Shasta counties, California.
Dallasite - green and off-white jasper from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.
Dalmatian jasper - off-white jasper with scattered black spots from an unspecified locality.
Egyptian jasper - brown and banded jasper that occurs as sporadic pebbles, cobbles and small boulders on the desert between the Red Sea and Cairo, Egypt.
Elephant jasper - brown jasper containing small black dendrites or exhibiting a spider-weblike pattern.
Frogskin jasper - grayish tan jasper with sporadic irregular green patterns from Chihuahua, Mexico.
Heliotrope - this name, widely applied to the bloodstone variety of chalcedony, has been recorded as "green jasper with [a] few small red dots" for an intaglio that is in archives of the Institute of Archaeology at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel (Peleg, 2003)
Imperial jasper - name given to a Mexican jasper that is variegated in green and yellow hues and is in part translucent so it exhibits diverse interesting patterns in transmitted as well as reflected light.
Iolanthite - local trade name for a banded reddish jasper found as pebbles in Crooked River, central Oregon.
Jasp agate (agate jasper, jasp fleuri, and jasponyx) - names sometimes given material that 1.consists of bands of transparent chalcedony and subtranslucent jasper, or 2.is deemed intermediate between jasper and agate.
Jasper breccia - term applied to two different materials: 1.breccias the larger fragments of which are jasper and 2.breccias that have been jasperized.
Jasperine - name sometimes applied to color banded jasper.
Kinradite - trade name for orbicular jasper that contains white or nearly colorless spherulites of quartz, from Point Bonita near the Golden Gate Bridge, California. See also Oregonite.
Lantana - name given chalcedony, banded agate or jasper beads produced in Ilorin, Nigeria during the 19th and 20th centuries (Lui, 1995).
Leopardskin jasper (also leopard jasper) - buff to orangish tan jasper with sporadic dark brown to nearly black spots or rings (typically about 1/4 inch in diameter), the overall pattern of which resembles that of leopards' coats.
Moss jasper - jasper with features similar to those of moss agate from the Mojave Desert of California.
Morrisonite - marketplace name for a varicolored jasper, which apparently had a volcanic ash precursor, from near the southern end of Lake Owyhee, Malheur County, Oregon (see Fig. D).
Moukaite - name sometimes given to light pink jasper from Australia.
Morlop - name sometimes applied to mottled jasper.
Mtorolite - "a uniform dark green jasper sent to me by someone from Africa, calling it that ... it may be a locality designation, perhaps associated with a settlement in the Mtwara administrative district of southeastern Tanzania." (Frederick Pough, personal communication, 1998); see also chrome chalcedony and mtorolite in the CHALCEDONY entry.
Mushroom jasper - cabochons, beads, pendants have been marketed widely as as mushroom agate, mushroom jasper and mushroom rhyolite, which is said to have been metamorphosed. All, if indeed there are three differently constituted ones, are said to come from Arizona. I have seen only photographs of any of these, but all appear to be virtually the same material. The photographs do indicate that the pattern exhibited by the polished surfaces resemble mushrooms.
Nunkirchner jasper - a rather dull grayish brown jasper from the vicinity of Idar-Oberstein, Germany.
Ocean jasper - marketplace name for the jasper, from Madagascar, that is shown as Figures B & C and described by Johnson et al. (2000). Additional information and some fine photographs are given by Tremblay and Cesare (2014).
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 gemrock IF the source rock is found to be available in quantities sufficient for economical recovery.
Orbicular jasper - jasper with sporadic orbicules -- i.e., roughly spherical zones -- with one or more colors different from the color of the main mass. One noteworthy source is Morgan Hill, Santa Clara County, California. See also kinradite, oregonite, owyhee jasper, ocean jasper and poppy-patterned jasper (etc.).
Oregonite - trade name sometimes given to kinradite (q.v.) from the area near Grants Pass, Oregon.
Owyhee jasper - name sometimes given to orbicular jasper in the marketplace.
Paradise jasper - local trade name for variegated red jasper from Morgan Hill, California.
Pastelite - jasper 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.
Petrified wood - much petrified wood is largely, if not wholly, jasper; see Xyloid jasper and FOSSILIFEROUS ROCKS entry.
Picture jasper - name applied to scenic jasper (q.v.) included in the Janet Annenberg Hooker Hall of Geology, Gems and Minerals of the National Museum of Natural History (Smithosonian Institue), Washington, D.C.
Poppy-patterned jasper (poppy jasper and poppy stone) - 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.
Riband jasper (also ribbon jasper) - jasper with bands of different colors.
Rogueite - greenish jasper found in gravels of Rogue River, Oregon.
Russian jasper - name sometimes given red-flecked jasper.
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.
Sioux Falls jasper - a multicolored jasper from Sioux Falls, South Dakota that has been used for such things as tabletopss and interior architectural trim.
Swiss lapis - a blue (apparently dyed) jasper, sometimes marketed as a lapis lazuli substitute.
Vabanite - a reddish brown jasper with yellow flecks and/or streaks from California.
Variegated jasper - name sometimes given rather high-quality jasper from the San Francisco region, California.
Wilkite (Willow Creek jasper) - "delicately colored yellow, purple, pink, and green variety of jasper, found near Willow Creek, north of Eagle, Ada County, Idaho." Mitchell (1985).
Wonderstone - see statements re Eagle Peak, New Mexico rock under REMARKS subheading in RHYOLITE entry.
Xyloid jasper - petrified wood that consists largely of jasper - i.e., jasperized wood .
Zebra jasper - a dark brown jasper with lighter brown to nearly off-white steaks from India and South Africa.
Zonite - term applied to various colored jasper and chert in Arizona.

USES: Jasper has found widespread use in jewelry and for fashioning ornaments since its early use as beads and for seals. Black jasper was used for intagli in Roman times (King, 1965, p.123); most "Indian beggar beads" consist at least in part of diversely colored jasper; many carvings are made of jasper; diverse jaspers have been used to make buttons...

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: See the localities noted with the terms listed under the OTHER NAMES subheading. As might be suspected from going through that list, jasper is relatively common -- Merrill's catalog entries (1922, p.25-26) for 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. Also, Evseev (1994, p.48) gives the following entry -- repeated here because of the relative difficulty in obtaining a copy of the publication in which it occurs:

"Jasper -- Since the 18th century, the Altai has been famous for decorative jasper varieties, which are used in large items -- Revnevskoye deposit (near the town of Zmeinogorsk) -- grey-green banded jasper (a large chunk of the Revnev jasper was used to manufacture a unique 3 x 5 m vase and columns in the Hermatage ... headwater of the Charysh River -- white jasper with black dendrites; Korgon River (confluent of the Charysh River) -- beautiful grey-violet porphyry; Transbaikalia -- 'Egyptian jasper' Ir-Nimi deposit (Far East) -- 'watercolor' jasper whose peculiar coloring is formed by bright blue patches on the red, dark grey, and brown background; specimens from this deposit came to be known quite recently in the 1970-1980s."

REMARKS: Jasper is recorded in ancient manuscripts (e.g., Exodus XXVII:20). Its etymology, as given in several references, is approximately the following: Middle English (jaspre); from Latin (iaspis); Greek (ιασπιϛ - iaspis); Persian (yašhm); Arabic (yašb); Hebrew (yāšhpêh); Assyrian/Akkadian (ašhpū).

The color and opacity of jasper is dependent upon its being so-to-speak "chuck full" of microscopic and submicroscopic inclusions, commonly of hematite and other iron-bearing minerals.

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 (see GLOSSARY); other scholars have suggested that jasper occupied either the fifth or sixth position. In addition, the term given the twelfth stone of the Breast plate of the High Priest, Yashpheh, has sometimes been translated as green jasper.

Jasper is indicated to constitute the first foundation of walls of the Heavenly City (Revelation, XXI:19).

SIMULANTS:

Bloodstone - this chalcedony gemrock [see CHALCEDONY entry] is sometimes called blood jasper. In my opinion, this reported nomenclature seems outlandish -- considering their market values, it seems much more likely that jasper resembling bloodstone would be marketed as a bloodstone simulant. However, I must admit that some bloodstone looks more like jasper than like chalcedony. - [In any case, fracture surfaces of chalcedony tend to be shinier than fracture surfaces of jasper.].

***Glass - Marilyn Jobe of Ellenton, Florida has fashioned beads from glass that closely resembles 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. - [Appearance suffices.].

***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.].

Sioux Falls jasper - brown quartzite used as a gemrock; from vicinity of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. - [vitreous luster].

In an opposite sense, the name Oriental jasper has been applied to bloodstone. - [As noted under the DESCRIPTION subheading, distinguishing some chalcedony from jasper, and even from some chert, is commonly subjective.].

REFERENCES: Blair, 1982; Dake, Fleener and Wilson, 1938; Frondel, 1962; Lovering, 1972.

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