Treasure Hunting

It’s been a busy week for me, and I haven’t had hardly any time to work on any of my “rock projects”.  I should have switched out the crystals that I’ve been tumbling, but I haven’t even had time for that.  I’m going to have to make sure to allot some time for that today or I’ll end up grinding them to bits.

I don’t have any new pictures, but I still wanted to post a picture today!  So I decided that I would show off this piece of desert jasper that I photographed awhile back.  It’s a specimen from Madagascar that has some very beautiful color combinations.  I have quite a few more of this type that I plan to photograph when I get a little bit of extra time.

The batch of jasper that I have been polishing finally finished up its last cycle in the rock tumbler this weekend.  Although there were three kinds of jasper in that group, I am just going to show pictures of the ocean jasper today.  

Not all of the pieces in this batch had the characteristic orbicular markings of ocean jasper, but most of the ones had a least a few orbs.  I am especially fond of the ones with the darker green tones because I like that color and it seems more “oceanic” to me.

The presence of the orbs does make the stone a bit more difficult to polish since the orbs are often small indentations in the stone.  These tiny pits can make the surface not as smooth as I would like in terms of touch, but I plan to do some more experimenting to see how to compensate for that factor.

Though the stone in the above picture doesn’t really have the darker greens that I like present in its coloring, I do like the coral tones.  Plus, there’s a lot to the pattern of this specimen.

The piece of ocean jasper in this last photograph really doesn’t have much of an orbicular pattern, but it is one of my favorites of the lot.  It has a nice shape and I love the seafoam-like pattern of the stone.

I’m sure there must just be tons of people out there wondering what rough Labradorite from Madagascar looks like.  Well, maybe there aren’t.  Regardless, I’m posting a picture of it because I’ve been on a “blue” kick lately.

The labradorite in this photo may look pretty opaque, but there are a few pieces that should polish up to show a nice bit of iridescence.  Right now, it just sort of looks like … well, rock - rock in a pretty shade of blue.  I’ll have to compare it to this picture in a few months when it’s all nicely polished and stuff.

Speaking of polishing, the jasper that I’ve been talking about on and off has finally moved on to the polishing cycle.  I’m using a very fine grain aluminum oxide for this last cycle - nothing fancy at all, just the basic polish grit.  I’m glad that no one else was around today when I was getting all the gunk cleaned off of the rocks from the last cycle in the tumbler.  I had to yell out several times begging the cats not to drink the filthy “rock water”.  I wish someone would explain to me why dirty water is so much more attractive to them than nice, fresh water.  More taste?  Or is it the texture?  Maybe, they just think it’s fancy mineral water.  Oh well, I guess it sorta is.  That’s what I really should have taken a picture of and posted - Pipper with her head shoved in a bowl of gunky, dirty rock water and having the best time of her life.

The sanding cycle finally finished yesterday for the jasper that I have had in the rock tumbler.  Now comes the fun part!  I took the photograph here after I got all of the silicon carbide washed off of the stones.  They’re still wet in the photo so it gives something of an idea of how they’re going to turn out when complete.

It will still be about two more weeks before it’s finally polished, assuming that everything goes well.  They’re just starting the pre-polishing cycle now and that should take about a week, give or take a day.  Then the polishing cycle will take about another week. 

Depending how the stones look after that, they may need a few extra days in a burnishing cycle.  It’s really hard to give an estimate on that, though, until I actually see the results after the polishing cycle.  If I had to guess, I would say that some burnishing will be needed but probably only about three days worth.

As the stones go through the grinding and sanding stages, they lose some of their volume so it’s important to add some type of filler in the final stages.  Up until now, I have been using small plastic pellets.  I hate these stupid pellets with a passion.  They’re supposed to be reusable, but they’re so annoying that I end up just throwing them away.  Then I get even more annoyed that I’m wasting something that’s supposed to be reusable.  I finally broke down and bought some ceramic media to use as filler.  I’m trying it for the first time in this pre-polishing cycle.  I can already tell that I’m going to like it better since it’s bigger and heavier.  

Orbicular jasper is a special variety of jasper that is known for the colorful orbs, or circular patterns, seen on the stone. A very unique type of orbicular jasper is the ocean jasper that is found only in Madagascar. The picture to the left here is some ocean jasper in its natural form. To be honest, the picture doesn’t do the stone justice. This ocean jasper is really gorgeous. I plan to polish these pieces in the rock tumbler, and I can’t wait to see the results.

So what makes ocean jasper so special? Well, for one thing, like I already said, it’s gorgeous. There’s only one place in the world it has been found - along the northwest coast of Madagascar. There is a bit of controversy about whether ocean jasper is actually a “jasper” or an “agate”. There is more on this discussion here. Although many sources are cited as claiming that ocean jasper is a recent discovery, that is not exactly true. There were reports of finding this stone back in 1922, but the location of the deposit was lost. Then at the 2000 Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, the jasper was reintroduced to the world by Madagascar Minerals. Now, there’s a treasure hunting story for you.

If you decide to buy ocean jasper, make sure you check the reputation of the seller. Several people, most notably on eBay, have been attempting to sell fake ocean jasper. If you’re really not sure who to buy from, check out The Gem Shop as they were originally an exclusive dealer for ocean jasper in the rough in the United States. Also, I bought a sample from The Rock Shed - I really like their offerings and would recommend them as well.

The name garnet is used to describe a large class of gemstones that can be almost any color of the spectrum and range in hardness from 6.0 to 7.5 on the Mohs scale. Usually, people associate the word with the deep red January gemstone.

The etymology of the word garnet is quite interesting. It is related to the same root as the word pomegranate, most likely because the small red seeds of the fruit resemble garnets.

The garnet is believed to hold many metaphysical properties including those of healing, strength, and protection. At one point in history, garnets were exchanged between friends as a demonstration of mutual admiration and hopes to see one another again. It is even said that Plato once had his portrait engraved on a garnet!

Garnets can be found all over the world, but a very beautiful variety was discovered in Madagascar in the 1990s. On of the unique properties of this variety is that it can change color from a deep blue-green in normal light to a purple in incandescent light. A picture of this gem can be found here.