SNAKE SKIN JASPER

This is a parcel of four  natural heart shaped stones  all  drilled in the top ready to be set .

Weight 38.10 cts app

Size 15 x 16 x 6 mm app

Snakeskin jasper occurs in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

The deposit is about 100 miles from the iron ore mining town of Newman which is in turn approximately 700 miles north of the capital, Perth.

The gemstone occurs as seams of jaspilite in a banded iron formation called "The Weeli Wooli Formation".

The age of this formation is around 2500 million years, so metamorphism & folding has added other interesting features such as cross cutting quartz veins & contortions to the unusual banding.

Jasper is an opaque rock of virtually any color 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. Hydro-thermal action is generally thought to be required in the formation of jasper.