Jasper#basanite

File:Egyptian - Finger Ring with a Representation of Ptah - Walters 42387 - Side A.jpg |url=http://art.thewalters.org/detail/15717 }} the Walters Art Museum]]

File:Red jasper amulet HARGM7392.JPG of scarlet jasper, provenance unknown, Royal Pump Room, Harrogate]]

File:Necklace And Pendant (possibly France), ca. 1870 (CH 18423329).jpg sphinx pendant, red jasper, pearl and enamel, French, circa 1870]]

The name means "spotted or speckled stone," and is derived via Old French {{Lang|fro|jaspre}} (variant of Anglo-Norman jaspe) and Latin {{Lang|la|iaspidem}} (nom. {{Lang|la|iaspis}}) from Greek {{math|ἴασπις}} iaspis (feminine noun),{{cite web |title=iaspis |id=Strong's G2393 |department=Lexicon |website=Blue Letter Bible |url=http://cf.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G2393&t=KJV |url-status=dead |archive-url=http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20160522180056/http://cf.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G2393&t=KJV |archive-date=22 May 2016}} from an Afroasiatic language (cf. Hebrew {{Lang|he|ישפה}} {{Transliteration|he|yashpeh}}, Akkadian yashupu).{{cite web |title=Jasper |website=etymonline.com |url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=jasper}} This Semitic etymology is believed to be unrelated to that of the English given name Jasper, which is of Persian origin,{{cite book |last1=Hanks |first1=Patrick |last2=Hardcastle |first2=Kate |last3=Hodges |first3=Flavia |date=2006 |title=A Dictionary of First Names |edition=2 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0198610601 |page=138}}{{efn|

"Jasper: The usual English form of the name assigned in Christian folklore to one of the three magi or 'wise men', who brought gifts to the infant Christ at his birth (Matthew 2:1). The name {{grey|[Jasper]}} does not appear in the Bible, and is first found in medieval tradition. It seems to be ultimately of Persian origin, from a word meaning 'treasurer'. There is probably no connection with the English vocabulary word jasper denoting a gemstone, which is of {{nobr|Semitic origin." — Hanks, Hardcastle, & Hodges (2006)}}

}} though the Persian word for the mineral jasper is also yashum (یَشم).

Green jasper was used to make bow drills in Mehrgarh between 4th and {{nobr|5th millennium BC.}}{{cite book |first1=Hermann |last1=Kulke |author1-link=Hermann Kulke |first2=Dietmar |last2=Rothermund |author2-link=Dietmar Rothermund |year=2004 |title=A History of India |publisher=Routledge |page=22 |isbn=0-415-32920-5}} Jasper is known to have been a favorite gem in the ancient world; its name can be traced back in Arabic, Persian, Hebrew, Assyrian, Greek and Latin.{{cite web |url=http://www.gemstone.org/gem-by-gem/english/jasper.html |publisher=International Colored Gemstone Association |series=Gem by Gem |title=Jasper}} On Minoan Crete, jasper was carved to produce seals circa 1800 BC, as evidenced by archaeological recoveries at the palace of Knossos.{{cite journal |first=C. Michael |last=Hogan |date=14 April 2008 |title=Knossos fieldnotes |journal=The Modern Antiquarian |url=http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/10854/knossos.html#fieldnotes}}

Although the term jasper is now restricted to opaque quartz, the ancient iaspis was a stone of considerable translucency including nephrite. The jasper of antiquity was in many cases distinctly green, for it is often compared to emerald and other green objects. Jasper is referred to in the Nibelungenlied as being clear and green. The jasper of the ancients probably included stones which would now be classed as chalcedony, and the emerald-like jasper may have been akin to the modern chrysoprase. The Hebrew word may have designated a green jasper.{{EB1911 |wstitle=Jasper |author=Rudler, Frederick William |inline=1}} Flinders Petrie suggested that the odem – the first stone on the High Priest's breastplate – was a red jasper, whilst tarshish, the tenth stone, may have been a yellow jasper.{{refn|{{cite book |title=Hastings's Dict. Bible |year=1902 |postscript=,}} cited in Encyclopædia Britannica (1911)..}}

File:Harappa red jasper male torso.jpg, Harappa, Indus Valley civilisation, Pakistan]]

File:Jasper vase WB.71.jpg, British Museum]]

File:Jasper goat basket (Russia, 19 c.).jpg]]

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.{{Cite web |title=Jasper |url=https://www.prehistoricoregon.com/learn/what-is-a-mineral/jasper/ |access-date=10 June 2022 |website=Prehistoric Online |language=en-US}}

Jasper can be modified by the diffusion of minerals along discontinuities providing the appearance of vegetative growth, i.e., dendritic. The original materials are often fractured and/or distorted, after deposition, into diverse patterns, 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.{{cite web |title=World of Jaspers |editor=Gamma, Hans |type=main |website=worldofjaspers.com |url=http://www.worldofjaspers.com/index.html}} 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.

Jasper is the main component in the silica-rich parts of banded iron formations (BIFs) which indicate low, but present, amounts of dissolved oxygen in the water such as during the Great Oxidation Event or snowball earths.{{Cite book|title=How to Build a Habitable Planet|last=Broecker|first=W.S.|year=1985}} The red bands are microcrystalline red chert, also called jasper.

File:Jasper earrings.jpg)]]

Picture jaspers exhibit combinations of patterns resulting in what appear to be scenes or images, when seen on a cut section. Such patterns include banding from flow or depositional patterns (from water or wind), as well as dendritic or color variations. Diffusion from a center produces a distinctive orbicular appearance, i.e., leopard skin jasper or linear banding from a fracture as seen in liesegang jasper. Healed, fragmented rock produces brecciated (broken) jasper.

While these "picture jaspers" can be found all over the world, specific colors or patterns are unique to the geographic region from which they originate. One source of the stone is Indonesia, especially in Purbalingga district. From the US, Oregon's Biggs jasper and Idaho's Bruneau jasper from the Bruneau River canyon are particularly fine examples. Other examples can be seen at Ynys Llanddwyn in Wales.{{cite web |title=Jasper gemological information |website=gemsociety.org |publisher=International Gem Society (IGS) |url=http://www.gemsociety.org/article/jasper-gem-information/ |access-date=16 January 2015}} A blue-green jasper occurs in a deposit at Ettutkan Mountain, Staryi Sibay, Bashkortostan, Russia. (The town of Sibay, in the far south of the Ural Mountains, near the border with Kazakhstan, is noted for its colossal, open-cast copper mine.){{cite web |title=[green] Jasper from Ettutkanskoe jasper deposit, Ettutkan Mt, Staryi Sibay, Bashkortostan, Russia |website=Mindat.org |url=https://www.mindat.org/locentry-707656.html |access-date=21 April 2020}}

Basanite is a deep velvety-black variety of amorphous quartz, of a slightly tougher and finer grain than jasper, and less splintery than hornstone. It was the Lydian stone or touchstone of the ancients. It is mentioned and its use described in the writings of Bacchylides about 450 BC, and was also described by Theophrastus in his book On Stones (Ancient Greek title: {{math|Περὶ λίθων}}: Peri Lithon), a century later. It is evident that the touchstone that Pliny had in mind when he wrote about it was merely a dense variety of basalt.{{cite book |last1=Dake |first1=H.C. |last2=Fleener |first2=Frank L. |last3=Wilson |first3=Ben Hur |year=1938 |title=Quartz Family Minerals: A handbook for the mineral collector |publisher=Whittlesey House (McGraw Hill)}}

Basanite (not to be confused with bassanite), Lydian stone, and radiolarite (a.k.a. lydite or flinty slate) are terms used to refer to several types of black, jasper-like rock (also including tuffs, cherts and siltstones){{cite journal |last1=Moore |first1=D.T. |last2=Oddy |first2=W.A. |date=1 January 1985 |title=Touchstones: Some aspects of their nomenclature, petrography and provenance |journal=Journal of Archaeological Science |volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=59–80 |doi=10.1016/0305-4403(85)90015-9 |bibcode=1985JArSc..12...59M }} which are dense, fine-grained and flinty / cherty in texture and found in a number of localities. The "Lydian Stone" known to the Ancient Greeks is named for the ancient kingdom of Lydia in what is now western Turkey. A similar rock type occurs in New England. Such rock types have long been used for the making of touchstones to test the purity of precious metal alloys, because they are hard enough to scratch such metals, which, if drawn (scraped) across them, show to advantage their metallic streaks of various (diagnostic) colours, against the dark background. There are, confusingly, not one but two rocks called basanite, one being a black form of jasper and the other a black volcanic rock closely akin to basalt. Add to this the fact that many different rock types – having in common the colour black and a fine texture – have, over the ages, been pressed into service as touchstones and it will be seen that there is ample scope for confusion in this petrology- and mineralogy-related field of study.{{cite web |title=Basanite |date=15 October 2012 |website=Mindat.org |url=http://www.mindat.org/min-9173.html |access-date=24 March 2013}}

File:Jasper (32132824820).jpg| Red jasper rough, Cave Creek, Arizona

File:Jasper-poloski.jpg|Dull red jasper veined with white quartz, rough, provenance: uncertain – possibly Crimea or Kyrgyzstan

File:jasper.pebble.600pix.bkg.jpg |Brecciated red jasper tumbled smooth, {{convert|1|inch|cm|abbr=on}}

File:Cherry Creek Jasper (China) (40126258670).jpg|Red-green-and-yellow jasper cabochon, Cherry Creek, China

file:Jasper-brek4iya.jpg|Brecciated yellow-and-green jasper, cut and polished, Kara Dag, Crimea

File:Cut and oiled yellow jasper 3.JPG |Brecciated yellow jasper, cut and oiled

File:Saint-Jacut-les-Pins - Tropical Parc, musée des minéraux (14).jpg|Green-yellow-and-orange polished jasper boulder, Tropical Parc, musée des mineraux, Saint-Jacut-les-Pins, Brittany

File:Green and Red Jasper IMG 9478.jpg|Green-and-red jasper pebble with areas of grey, translucent chalcedony, Aomori Prefecture, Shichiri Nagahama, Japan

File:Tabu Tabu Jasper (South Africa) (41889473312).jpg|Cabochon of Tabu Tabu jasper (brecciated, with angular clasts cemented by grey chalcedony) South Africa

File:Bloodstone 3 (49036281801).jpg|Jasper variety bloodstone, provenance doubtful, possibly Deccan Traps India

File:Jaspi verd, montjuic, barcelona.jpg |Multi-coloured, banded jasper rough, Montjuïc, Barcelona

File:Kaleidoscope Jasper from Oregon.jpg | Kaleidoscope jasper rough, Oregon

File:Poppyjasper.jpg|Poppy jasper (an orbicular jasper from Morgan Hill, California), rough

File:Poppyjasperpolished.JPG|Poppy jasper: small, polished slabs, Morgan Hill, California

File:Freiberg, Terra mineralia, Augenjaspis.JPG|Orbicular "ocean jasper" (not, strictly, a jasper, but a highly silicified rhyolite or tuff) Analalava District Madagascar, polished slab

File:Jaspe orbiculaire Madagascar 1597B.jpg |Orbicular "ocean jasper", {{convert|5|cm|in|abbr=on}}, Analalava District, Madagascar

File:Bruneau Jasper from Idaho Thundereggs.jpg |Bruneau jasper, Idaho (this jasper occurs within thundereggs), A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum

File:Mookaite (Windalia Radiolarite Formation, Lower Cretaceous; Western Australia).jpg|"Mookaite" (a radiolarian chert from the Windalia Radiolarite Formation, Western Australia), rough

File:Biggs jasper on carpet.jpg|Biggs jasper, Oregon

File:Jasper Dalmatian (212237453).jpeg|"Dalmatian jasper" – not a jasper at all but a form of the igneous rock perthite. The black spots are composed of the rare amphibole arfvedsonite (and not, as often claimed, of tourmaline). Polished pebble.

File:Black and white striped Zebra jaspers, small, smooth, tumbled.

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{{reflist|25em}}

{{Commons category|Jasper}}

• {{Cite Americana|wstitle=Jasper |short=x}}
• {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Jasper |volume=15 |page=279 |short=x}}

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{{Silica minerals}}

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