Jasper the Spotted Stone

One of the oldest gemstones known to us Jasper comes in many different colours including brown, grey blue, yellow, green and red, sometimes even mixtures of these colours.

A variety of opaque fine grained Chalcedony it's anglo-french translation meaning "spotted stone" is very common in red or brown red.

Legend tells us that to wear this gemstone will balance the emotional energy in the body and also keep sight defects at bay as well as help to bring much needed rainfall to areas of drought.

This inexpensive and very popular gemstone is often heavily marked with orbicular or striped patterns and gets it's red colouring from the presence of iron oxide.

Good sources of red stones come from India and Venezuela with the orbicular and striped gems coming from California, France, Germany and Russia.

The Petrified Forest in Arizona's Painted Desert has some fantastic examples of Chalcedony included fossil wood.

Photo by Sarah Meder

Having a hardness of 7 on the Moh scale the spotted stone is sturdy but some of the striped varieties can break at the junction of stripes so care must be taken with these.

The gem has a dull lustre but reacts superbly to polishing and is very popular cut into Beads for use by jewelers in necklaces and bracelets.

A nicely polished gemstone does not take kindly to being exposed to water as this dulls the polish so when cleaning your stones make sure to only use a dry clean cloth.

Orbicular and striped varieties are very often cut into cabochons (flat bottomed with a domed upper) as this shows off the patterns and swirls to the maximum and can look stunning.

For hundreds of years the gemstone has been used for the engraving of cameos.

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