False Jaspers

Jasper is am often misunderstood stone which stone sellers will assign to stones which are not in face jasper. Please see our entry on jasper for details but essentially jasper is a quartz family mineral which silica has indurated another stone and silica now occupies the voids in the stone and it has become a quartz rock. 

Bumblebee Jasper is really a mixture of volcanic sediment and lava from a volcano in Java, Indonesia. It is softer than jasper. (Details at the GIA)

Green Zebra Jasper is really a Chrysotile Serpentine and contains asbestos. This is for wearing only. Take care when cutting or polishing it. 

Cherry Creek/Picasso Jasper is really a metamorphic limestone/dolomite or marble and colored by Iron oxides. It is softer than jasper and often stabilized. It is also acid sensitive. 

Ocean Jasper is really a "material categorized as an orbicular jasper. The word orbicular refers to the spherical forms found in many rhyolites. All of these rhyolites have been sold or marketed as jasper so there is precedent for these rhyolite patterns being associated with the word "jasper". To the best of my knowledge there has never been a rock referred to as an "orbicular agate".

Ocean Jasper is an agate by the standard definition (agate being translucent and jasper being opaque). Ocean Jasper is rarely opaque. We decided to call the material a jasper because rhyolitic patterns have been associated with the jasper category in the past and because "jasper" is listed as the mineral resource in the mining claims owned by Paul Obeniche." (excerpt from the Gem Shop)

K2 Jasper is really a Azurite in granitic rock from Pakistan. Raman analysis by Garry Du Toit at GIA in Bangkok confirmed that the blue spots consist of azurite, which occur in a matrix of sodic plagioclase, quartz, and muscovite. (Details at the GIA Pgs 55-56)

Dalmatian Jasper is really an Igneous Rock that is softer than jasper. (Details at the GIA)

Sea Sediment Jasper is really a dyed Variscite in resin.

Kambaba Jasper is really names "Eldarite" and is a green groundmass is composed mainly of quartz, pyroxene with orbicles of alkali feldspar embedded with streaky aggregates comprising tiny needles of amphibole.