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Jade (Nephrite)

Legends & Lore
 

Known as the Yu gemstone, Nephrite Jade was known as the “Stone of Heaven” in ancient China. Nephrite Jade was excavated from the Kunlun Mountains of Northwest China, from 5,000 B.C. and even today China remains an important source for this gemstone.

In Russia, it has been mined and crafted since 3,000 B.C. Tsar Alexander III’s sarcophagus was carved from Nephrite. For about 3,000 years, the gemstone has been highly prized by the Native North Americans of British Columbia, Canada, where it was known as “Greenstone”. For centuries, the New Zealand Maori have made beautiful Nephrite carvings and they relied on it for tools and weapons until the Europeans introduced metals in the 18th Century.

For centuries, Nephrite Jade and the other jade variety Jadeite were considered one and the same and it was not until 1863 that they were identified as different minerals with similar a appearance and properties.
 

Nephrite is composed of silica and magnesia and its color is determined by the amount of iron present in the mineral. Less iron content produces lighter colors such as white, cream, yellow, gray, green, blue, red, brown, and lavender. More iron content produces the darker colored Nephrite, such as darker gray and darker green. Nephrite is an amphibole silicate but physically it is similar to chalcedony in that they both have a fibrous structure. Due to its fibrous alignment and grain size, Nephrite can be very tough to work with. The most common impurities are Spinel minerals, which may undercut or cause pitting.
 

Nephrite has the highest tensile strength (i.e. toughness as opposed to hardness) of all natural gemstones and in fact has a tensile strength greater than some steal – it is so strong that it cannot be chiseled but has to be ground using sharp abrasives. In antiquity, it was often used in weaponry because of its great strength.
 

Today, Nephrite has a multiplicity of uses. Because it is less translucent that Jadeite, it is better suited to delicately carved Jewelry such as cameos. Its durability suits it to all kinds of carvings and also to architectural applications such as laminates.