PICTURE JASPER STONE.

These are Two natural  well polished jasper picture stones cut into a intarsa-simply stunning.

Weight 79.70 cts app

Size 36 x 29 x 6 mm app

Jasper, a form of chalcedony,is an opaque, impure variety of silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in color. Blue is rare. This minerl breaks with a smooth surface, and is used for ornamentation or as a gemstone. It can be highly polished and is used for vases, seals, and at one time for snuff boxes. When the colors are in stripes or bands, it is called striped or banded jasper. Jaspilite is a banded iron formation rock that often has distinctive bands of jasper.Jasper is basically chert which owes its red color to iron  inclusions

often contains organic material and mineral oxides which give it interesting patterns, bands and colors. Many of these patterns resemble landscapes with mountains and valleys, thus the name "picture" is part of the name of many well know jaspers.

Jasper was a favorite gem in ancient times and is referenced in Greek, Hebrew, Assyrian and Latin literature.

Found worldwide, a wide variety of named jaspers is found in the western areas of the Unites States; California, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and Washington.

Picture jasper is a petrified or silicated mud that dripped into gas pockets in molten lava. It became superheated and then solidified forming the unusual banded patterns which are typical of this stone.