Bonus Minerals - "Pegratite" Green Spiderweb Jasper With Opal

Pegratite, Green Spiderweb Jasper

Since my wife, @tokyowomanslife is visiting from Tokyo we have been traversing all over California and Arizona collecting and purchasing new minerals. We came across some cool, old material called "Pegratite" trade name "Green Spiderweb Jasper" from Idaho. What drew us to it was the opal inside of it. We've been on an opal binge lately so when we saw these and some other opals we bought several pounds of them.

The material originates on the Idaho/Oregon border. Idaho is known for various types of opals. While the jasper contains mostly common opal, there is some fire here and there. Common opal refers to opal that doesn't have the play of color, fire, that precious opal has.

Pegratite was discovered/named in the 1960's by a man whose last name was Pegra hence the name Pegratite, not to be confused with pegmatite. From researching the material it seems to have been formed in two phases. First, the jasper spiderweb patterns formed with gas bubble pockets. Then it was fractured during some other even which left cracks and vugs, pockets. Those vugs were then filled in with silica-rich fluids which produced the opal.

There are other "Spiderweb Jaspers" out there, but this appears to be the rarer and more sought after material.

I will be carefully slicing some of the material up into slabs for cabbing and leaving some of it as is. I should have some up on our Etsy shop and Japan shop in a week or two. http://Etsy.com/shop/rt395minerals and https://www.rt395mineralsjp.com

Thanks for reading!

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Really neat ! Rockhounding is so interesting and cool to me :) Love the photos :D

Thank you @veryspider. It is indeed fun to get out in nature and see what you can find, or just buy it from a supplier!

Great drawings on your blog! I used to use those Sakura pens many years ago. Best of luck with your art!

cool. i have seen those before i think . would be cool to chip out that opal, then again, some of that other material in it is cool too. looks flowing

Since most of the opal is common it is better to leave it in as a specimen. If it was precious we'd be cutting it up.

As for the material, some of the cabochons I've seen on Etsy are really nice. I am sure someone could make some nice cabs from it.

Thanks for stopping by!

This post was shared in the Curation Collective Discord community for curators, and upvoted and resteemed by the @c-squared community account after manual review.

Can't wait to see the slices! It is beautiful!

Ahhh I packed them away. My wife is going back to Japan so we packed them. I still have the huge piece in the first photo. I will cut it up but have to study it first to find the best way to cut it.

We just went to the Oceanview tourmaline mine yesterday and came back with a bunch of goodies I'll write about in Mineral Mondays tomorrow!

I love hearing about your finds! How does searching for treasure in CA differ from rockhounding in Japan?

Japan is very limited to where you can hunt. Most of the land is owned and that which isn't is restricted by the government. There is an awesome city on the West Coast of Japan called Itoigawa. They have large Jadeite deposits near the coast so the beaches and main river have natural, tumbled jadeite. In addition they are one of the only other places on Earth that have benitoite, California's state gem. It's a wonderful place to collect minerals, especially after a typhoon churns up the ocean.

Your post has been read and you did great! You received a 40.0% upvote from us for your post with the geology tag since you are a member of the geopolis community.
Keep on writing and stay curious!