Lapidaryforum.net
Let's Rock => Identifications of Materials => Topic started by: bgast1 on June 07, 2015, 08:38:30 AM
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I'm confused. Is it Jade or is it Jasper. Where does it come from? I know Washington state but I am looking for a more precise location so that I can find it on a map.
The reason for the confusion is because a day or so ago I received a convo on my Etsy shop from a guy and he told me that it is a Jade type. He said that it was a Nephrite type of Jade. He said that he lives near Ellensburg and finds this type of Jade all the time.
Can someone clear this up for me, as I want to be as accurate as possible on anything that I list for sale. Thanks
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Not jade. It is a jasper that comes from the Teanaway river near Cle Elum Washington. You can look up Mt. Stuart a huge granite peak that looms above the entire drainage.There is jade in the drainage but it tends to be in small cobbles and is rarely found even by the best jade collectors.
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the term Teanaway Jade (for this jasper stone) is from everyone mistaking it for jade.
for years people have been finding it, its commonly mistaken for jades of that area due to the colors and out polished shell in the creeks and teanaway river.
It really stands out while mixed within the other cobbles in the water too.
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look up 21 pines camp ground, then go 13 miles up the teanaway river, on google earth you will see two roads after you take a left out of the camp ground, go up the right road.
When you get to the top of the road at the parking lot, go back down to the first right.
Thats where i found a bunch of nice ones while deer hunting.
went back for them after hunting and they were gone. The place is hounded heavy and daily.
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Thank you all so much, I am going to do a search but just in case does anyone know when and how it was determined to be a Jasper, or can someone experienced like Frank tell just by looking at it?
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We get lots of sea bed jaspers in the streams here as well as on the beach. These are usually pretty mixed up rocks , mushed together without a lot of dazzling structure as some jaspers have and they are often muddy green in color because there is so much iron around.With experience most folks can tell the difference with a bit of practice. In a trip to the stream or beach here you see a huge number of cobbles many of them too big to ignore. They often look better for cutting in the field than they do after they are worked up. We have so many of these sea bed rocks ( cherts and serpentines) because of the sea bed getting scraped off and made into mountains here on the leading edge of the north American plate.