Jasper is an opaque variety of Chalcedony , and is usually associated with brown, yellow, or reddish colours, but may be used to describe other opaque colours of Chalcedony such as dark or mottled green, orange, and black. Jasper is almost always multicoloured, with unique colour patterns and habits.
Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or chalcedony and other mineral phases, is an opaque, impure variety of silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in colour; and rarely blue. The common red colour is due to iron inclusions. The mineral aggregate breaks with a smooth surface and is used for ornamentation or as a gemstone. It can be highly polished and is used for vases, seals, and snuff boxes. The specific gravity of jasper is typically 2.5 to 2.9. Along with heliotrope ( bloodstone ), jasper (green with red spots) is one of the traditional birthstones for March. Jaspilite is a banded iron formation rock that often has distinctive bands of jasper.
Jasper is one of the many gemstone varieties of quartz available today. It is an opaque and impure variety of silicon dioxide (SiO2). The name 'jasper' is derived from the Greek word for 'spotted stone', referring to its typical multicoloured, striped, spotted or flamed appearance. Jasper can form in virtually any colour. Jasper is usually considered a chalcedony, but some scientists classify jasper as a separate type because of its distinctive grainy structure.
Jasper is a dense substance, up to twenty percent of which can be made of foreign materials. Due to these trace impurities, jasper is rarely uniform. In some cases, jasper may even grow together with agate or opal. The patterns of jasper are formed during the process of mineral consolidation, determined by the exact flow and deposition of silica-rich sediments or volcanic ash. Jasper is often modified by other intruding impurities. As original deposits of silica materials naturally form with fissures and cracks after deposition, they are later filled by other minerals, such as iron oxide, manganese dioxide, metal oxide and sometimes organic matter. The final settling of these materials determines the specific appearance of the final substance.
The maximum not unusual jasper patterns encompass exciting marbling and veining, orbital rings, streaks, spots, flaming and banding. Like agate stone, there are various change names and classifications used for jasper today. The names may be very perplexing, but happily, maximum are used most effective via the maximum avid collectors.
Jasper is an opaque rock of virtually any colour stemming from the mineral content of the original sediments or ash. Patterns arise during the consolidation process forming flow and depositional patterns in the original silica rich sediment or volcanic ash. Hydrothermal circulation is generally thought to be required in the formation of jasper.
Jasper may be modified through the diffusion of minerals along discontinuities offering the arrival of vegetative boom, i.E., dendritic. The original substances are frequently fractured and/or distorted, after deposition, into various styles, which are later filled in with other colorful minerals. Weathering, with time, will create intensely colored superficial rinds.
The classification and naming of jasper varieties presents a challenge. Terms attributed to various well-defined materials includes the geographic locality where it is found, sometimes quite restricted such as "Bruneau" (a canyon) and "Lahontan" (a lake), rivers and even individual mountains; many are fanciful, such as "forest fire" or "rainbow", while others are descriptive, such as "autumn" or "porcelain". A few are designated by the place of origin such as a brown Egyptian or red African.
Picture jaspers showcase combinations of styles (inclusive of banding from glide or depositional patterns (from water or wind), dendritic or colour versions) resulting in what look like scenes or photos (on a cut section). Diffusion from a centre produces a exceptional orbicular look, i.E., leopard skin jasper, or linear banding from a fracture as visible in leisegang jasper. Healed, fragmented rock produces brecciated (damaged) jasper. While those "photo jasper" can be observed everywhere in the international, particular shades or styles are specific, based upon the geographic place from which they originate. Oregon's Biggs jasper, and Bruneau jasper from Bruneau Canyon close to the Bruneau River in Idaho are known as mainly quality examples. Other examples can be visible at Llanddwyn Island in Wales.
The time period basanite has every now and then been used to refer to plenty of jasper, a black flinty or cherty jasper observed in several New England states of the United States. Such sorts of jasper are also informally referred to as lydian stone or lydite and have been used as touchstones in trying out the purity of precious metallic alloys.
Jasper is a lot of quartz with a chemical composition composed mainly of silicon dioxide. Up to twenty% percentage of excellent dense jasper may be composed of overseas substances, typically hematite, pyrolusite, clay or calcite. It has any such incredibly grainy structure compared to other varieties of chalcedony that some scientists even put jasper into its personal man or woman group in the quartz circle of relatives. Jasper has a microcrystalline shape this means that its trigonal crystals can handiest be seen under high magnification. It can be effortlessly distinguished from many other comparable materials by its extraordinary hardness and absence of cleavage.
Jasper gems can be determined in lots of places round the world. Some of the most fantastic deposits are sourced from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Mexico, Russia, Uruguay, Venezuela and the US of America, inclusive of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Idaho, Oregon, Texas and Washington.
| Chemical Formula | SiO2 |
| Colour | White, Blue, Red, Green, Yellow, Orange, Brown, Gray, Black, Banded, Multicoloured |
| Hardness | 6.5 - 7 |
| Crystal System | Hexagonal |
| Refractive Index | 1.54 - 1.55 |
| SG | 2.63 - 2.65 |
| Transparency | Opaque |
| Double Refraction | .009 |
| Luster | Vitreous |
| Cleavage | Indiscernible |
| Mineral Class | Quartz (Chalcedony). |
