Collecting Morrisonite Jasper

Photos of fungi, Colorful fall leaves and sunrises with their gorgeous colors and patterns continue to accumulate in my online files (and in blog posts shared here). They have the advantage of not taking up space in my office. Still, I am glad I decided to collect Morrisonite jasper at a time when it seemed that examples of this spectacular jasper would become increasingly hard to find. I was overjoyed to have an opportunity to visit the equally spectacular mine site of this “King of Jaspers.”

Like many beginning collectors, I just collected what I liked without knowing much about what this special jasper is capable of doing. Now I find many examples from those early days of my collecting to be quite charming:






Cropped Rock Art

Well not just any rock – the source was an absolutely spectacular slab of Morrisonite jasper from the outstanding collection of Philip Stephenson (his website). With Morrisonite it often makes more sense to leave the slab whole rather than to cut it into cabochons.

There was something about this particular slab – various sections of it might indeed stand out in a museum modern art exhibit. Below is the source slab and a variety of my cropping attempts, some more successful than others.

Source Slab Photo by Philip Stephenson