* Think big. Sifting through pebbles looking for jade is a waist of time. Jade comes in large blocks that are easier to identify, and are plentiful enough to find. Pebbles are often difficult to identify (for many reasons) and at the end of the day all you have are pebbles. Jade is a carving stone more than a "gem" stone, so you want a fairly large piece to work with. Patterns aren't present in pebbles like in the bigger stones and because of its toughness, it doesn't lend itself as easily to breaking up into small bits. You simply won't find what you're looking for if you focus on pebbles.


* Throw away all your color bias. How do you know what color the jade in an area is going to look like? Pure jade is white. It comes in all shades of green and in black, red, pink, brown, tan, yellow, orangish, lavender, violet, grey (blueish), patterned and with inclusions. Jadeite is more often vari-colored and nephrite is usually green, white, grey or black. Mono colored jades are rarer than mottled jades. A very common inclusion in jades are tiny black specks. Jades are often cloudy or milky looking. And what if it has a rind? Rinds can be jade like or they can be white, buff, black, brown, yellow, orange. Rinds can be hard like the jade or softer. And the jade may be hiding inside another material, or mixed with hydrogrossular garnet, rodingite, serpentinite and talcy schists. You have to learn what the ugly jade looks like as well as the good, or you'll never find the good. If you dismiss the "ugly" as not jade, you simply will not find the good. Jade slicks are nice, but are uncommon. (A jade slick is simply jade that has acquired a natural polish) Opaques are valuable too. Jade isn't like crystals, translucency only matters for some lapidary uses, but jade is jade. Take a close look at some of the Central and South American jade art. They are rarely translucent, but are still beautiful jade.

* Bring back as many stones as you can from a locality. It is often the case that you won't notice the jade in your hand until you get it home. If you do a lot of field tests, you won't have time to look at enough rocks to find the jade. Max out your carrying capacity. Take a little bit of every suspicious rock. It is true that it is rare, but part of that is its ability to hide. Once you are in a known locality believe that anything could be jade. Take the time to learn about all the not jade there, so you can dismiss it more quickly. One good sign you have something is that there isn't much else it quite looks like...it's at least that rare. But note! An area with jade has all kinds of jade, not just one, though there does seem to be a set of common varieties for each locality, so be prepared and don't get stuck in a bias. A lot of rock hounds get stuck in a bias and give up because they can't find it.

* Learn what rodingite is, and always examine the ones you see, you may find jade or other mineralization. And bring home the hydrogrossular garnet...its a great consolation prize, and may include jade. It is also noted that "rodingite" is the "white rock" on nephrite selvages (self edges). I've seen this occasionally, but often the white rock is too soft to be rodingite proper, but is likely part of the same reaction series. After some thought, I do have quite a few examples of this stuff that is hard like rodingite, on the selvages of jade and in one case a serpentinite lens from the metasomatic reaction zone.

* Bring a magnet and a knife. Is it jade or serpentinite? Learn to use a magnet to gauge how much of a rock is what. (serpentinite has a lot of iron in it so you should be able to feel the attraction to some degree...practice, as some is just slightly attractive). I should note that it is reported that some or a lot of the jade around Washington is attractive to a magnet due to a high iron content. I personally do not feel that this invalidates the magnet test. The greener the jade, the higher the iron content, but I have yet to find a piece of jade that is noticeably attractive to the magnets I use...it always turns out to be a serpentine rock...some of which can be hard enough to fool you if you are not meticulous about your scratch tests. The scratch test is nice, but watch out for the soft rinds, they'll trick you. And most jade has serpentinite in it to some degree. Scratch all over the rock. I almost dismissed a 25 pound sub-translucent nice green boulder of jade the other day because the first spot I scratch on it in the field was soft...it was just the last bit of the serpentinite "matrix" or a bit of soft rind. That would be like throwing away a week's salary!

* Don't break the rock if you are going to take it home anyway!!!! Only break rocks you have serious enough doubt about that you aren't going to carry it unless you have more proof, but break all novel rocks you see just to learn what they are all about...and scratch everything. Of course, if you find it necessary, try to just break off a chip. It's useful to have a fresh surface to perform the scratch test on, and to see past the rind, and to note the fracture tendency.

* If it glitters like quartz, its not jade.

* On Fractures...This is a troubling issue with jade. It has a "splintery" fracture, often referred to as "subcochoidal". Which is awfully close to saying its "conchoidal". And objectiveness seeps into the process. It has also been noted that jade has an uneven fracture. The fracture test should never be taken as definitive with jade. Splintery, cochoidal and subcochoidal fracturing are all signs that a material will take a good polish, so in that regard it is a good field marker. But unless the fracturing is severely cochoidal, don't dismiss it as chert or jasper so quickly. Also don't dismiss layered, or schisty looking material...jade can have that appearance as well, especially if it is a combination of materials, or is a weathered out lenses of jade from within serpentinite and schists. Bladed is another term often applied to the habit/fracture/cleavage of jade (that is, its shape), and it is true that pieces of jade often are shaped like an ax blade, probably for a variety of reasons, but this isn't a good diagnostic tool, just helpful when scanning the gravel bars. That is, look at any blade or tapered shape rock with suspicion. I believe this is caused by both its "splintery" fracture and subsequent weathering, and by the natural self-edged shape it forms as lenses within the schists and serpentinites it is found in. This seems to only be true for smaller cobbles though, and only sometimes.

* Jade has no cleavage. That is a useful statement, but misleading. Certain large blocks of jade do show cleavage, and, as noted above, some jade may exhibit cleavage-like layering planes. the first is cleavage, the second is an Illusion. A truer statement would be that jade does not exhibit a diagnostically useful or commonly visible cleavage, but may seem to mimic the cleavage planes of other rocks. It all has it, but usually it can only be seen microscopically.


* The "good quality" jade from Washington state is usually a patterned or mottled (or marbled) green and white variety with decent translucency. Most of the solid greens are not of the most desirable green, but as a carving material are valuable as finished pieces. Smaller and lens shaped jades tend not to be of exceptional quality, bigger tends to be better.

• Grandy Creek
• Pilchuck Creek
• Finney Creek
• Deer Creek,Oso
• NF Stillaguamish River
• Bear Creek
• Prestine Creek
• NF Nooksack

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These are some of my favorite sites for jade and most useful links for Pacific Northwest Jade (WA)...more to come.

• WashingtonJade Great site with a large collection of Washington botryoidal jade, and some information on identification.
• FriendsofJade
• TimelessJade
• Suiseki This site is devoted to rock appreciation, but its mostly about the jade (Northern California). Lots of Botryoidal pieces.
• CascadeJadeCreations
• JadeCarver
• RiverBlossomJade
• JadeMart A little bit about manufacturing and processing of jade.
• 1-jade.blogspot List of jade localities worldwide (not comprehensive)
• Mindat
• Mindat Rockhound Msg Board
• Mindat Nephrite
• Mindat Wa
• Mineralcouncil Washington State Mineral Council
• Is there jade in Washington? Well, yeah.
• Carving Tips
• TheJadeMine
• Washington Agate and Mineral Society
• Wa Generalized Geological Maps USGS
• http://ngmdb.usgs.gov/
• More Wa Generalized Geological Maps (not USGS)
• Redrummdknives Mike has knives with handles made from local (WA) jade and hydrogrossular garnet. He also knows a good deal about carving it and is willing to share his knowledge. His site has a tutorial on making the stone handled knives.