Jasper Beads
Jasper beads are opaque, fine-grained quartz colored by the iron oxides, clay and other minerals mixed through it, and the name is applied loosely to many patterned rocks that are not quartz at all. This collection holds every jasper we stock: red, fancy, picture, fossil, wooden, dalmatian, kiwi, polychrome, brecciated and snakeskin jaspers along with kambaba, dragon's blood, leopard skin, ocean jasper, mookaite and unakite, in a range of finishes and shapes for bracelets, necklaces and earrings.
Appearance
Red jasper is a solid brick to oxblood red from hematite, and brecciated red jasper is the same stone broken and re-cemented with grey chalcedony. Fancy jasper, also sold as Indian agate, mixes olive green, cream, pink and mauve in soft patches. Picture jasper carries tan and brown bands that look like desert landscapes, and wooden and cappuccino jaspers run in browns and cream. Fossil jasper is cream and beige with rounded shell-like shapes, red snakeskin has a fine net of lines, and polychrome jasper from Madagascar swirls red, mustard and grey.
Several stones here are jasper by trade name: dalmatian jasper is a pale igneous rock with black amphibole spots, kiwi jasper a speckled quartz and feldspar rock, black picasso jasper a grey marble, unakite a granite of pink feldspar and green epidote, leopard skin jasper rhyolite, dragon's blood green epidote with red patches, kambaba a volcanic rock, ocean jasper orbicular chalcedony and mookaite silicified radiolarite. A polished finish gives depth; a matte finish gives a river stone look. Most sit at 6.5 to 7 on the Mohs scale; black picasso jasper, a marble, is much softer.
Formation and origin
True jasper forms when silica-rich water saturates volcanic ash, sediment or older rock and hardens it into microcrystalline quartz, trapping whatever iron, clay and organic matter was there. Iron oxides give the reds, yellows and browns, chlorite and clay give greens, and bands, orbs and brecciation record water flow, cooling and later fracturing. India supplies fancy and red jasper, Madagascar polychrome, ocean and kambaba, Australia mookaite, Mexico dalmatian and leopard skin, and the western United States picture jasper.
Pairings
Mookaite beads: Australian jasper in red, yellow and cream, the same family and hardness in warmer, cleaner colors.
Amazonite beads: a cool blue-green that gives earthy reds and browns a counterpoint, at a similar 6 to 6.5 hardness.
Carnelian agate beads: translucent orange beside opaque red or picture jasper, both quartz and both hard enough for daily wear.
Meaning and Metaphysical Beliefs
Jasper has long been counted among the stones of the earth, and it appears in the Bible in the high priest's breastplate and in the walls of the heavenly city. Red jasper has been worn as a stone of endurance, picture jasper as a stone of journeys, and in modern crystal traditions the family is associated with grounding, stamina and the root chakra. These are traditional beliefs, not claims of physical effect.
