🔎 UNIDENTIFIED A kind of quartz I think?

[desertau]

This is stone from a mine in XinMi, China, it’s in the mix of what I guess you’d call “new jade” and colors range from dark green to pinks, tan and whites with variations depending on location to other minerals and oxides? In the context of Jadeite and Nephrite I don’t believe this is jade at all, rather some quartz with maybe something else that gives it better properties for carving, or is it plain quartzite or something else different? I’ve always wondered when I first visited there everyone called it jade, later another friend looked a some and thought it was quartz like.

On another trip I tried to get some clarification but due to huge language differences my questions were just confusing so I gave up and went with the flow. I think the confusion arises with what the word “yu” (jade) meaning in mandarin and in translation. Still I’m curious if anyone might be familiar with this stone?

Images; saw cut two sides, close up of what I think are cleavages and the same stone slightly different shade carved and polished by hand with sandpaper I think (in case it makes a difference compared to buffing wheel with oxides?).

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Family Maps of Hinds County, Mississippi, Deluxe Edition - Grab it through Amazon!

[DizzyDigger]

Can't answer your question, but it is beautiful stone...

 

[Upnorth42]

First two images totally look like sawn jade I have seen in the past.

 

[Clay Diggins]

It doesn't look like jadeite or nephrite It looks like Serpentine var antigorite. Check the hardness, try scratching it with a drill bit or quality knife. It it scratches it's neither jade nor quartz.

 

[desertau]

Thank you everyone for looking and commenting, much appreciated. Thank you

I used the pointed edge of a 3/8 wide wood chisel against two areas on one of the sawn sides, with firm pressure of the pointed corner of the chisel there is a mark that wipes off in both the lighter and darker areas tested, a second try with more pressure did the same results, no scratch.

Here’s another piece rough cut for carving and roughly sanded, this surface might reveal something different?

Disregard these (removed) pictures I’m adding new ones, this piece had calcium build up from soaking in water.

OK, sorry about the confusion, I used a little 100 grit sandpaper to clean off the residue from our hard water, posted again cleaned a little.