Jade Hunting, How to "Identify" and "Test" Jade!

[Music] [Applause] [Music] well hello everyone dan here with january prospecting here welcome back to my channel and if you're new welcome i hope to earn your subscription today i am out here on a very windy very cold february day looking for jade i just spent a couple days on my claim here gold panning and i found a lot and had a blast if you want to see that go check out my previous video anyhow i lost my gold pan it blew in the river and went away so i'm out here looking for jade in the wind hopefully you can hear what i'm saying and the wind is just killing the microphone so wish me luck give me some more thoughts and i hope you enjoy [Music] i'm not gonna be able to do too much footage here on the river because the gusts of wind are just insane yesterday actually uh one of the gusts of wind blew me over literally blew me over and blew my hat into the river too so i'm not gonna do too much footage out here on the river it's just too cold and windy i will show you what i do find and then i'm gonna take some of this home and i'm gonna show you how to identify a jade how to tell serpentine from jade ultra mafix from jade how you know if you found jade that's the plan after i go find some myself so this is my jade claim and you know it runs all the way up to that point way up there dana and i my wife dana and i have found lots of jade along this hill last year we're hoping that you know the floods from last year and everything has moved things around and may have exposed some more what i'm seeing right now is i'm not really liking there's a lot of mud on the lower rocks still they haven't been washed free from rainstorms and the mud really hides what the rocks are really we need a good rainstorm right now to wash the mud off those rocks but let's see what i can find anyways i'm sure there's something over there now there's a lot of these really green rocks on this beach which are just ultra mafic rocks they're not actually jade they fool you there's also this black rock here actually i think that's a piece of it never mind there's some black jade right there you can really tell the black jade from how polished and smooth the surface is that's a nice little example i might keep that one now if you hear anyone talking about nephrite when they're talking about jade jade and nephrite are the same thing nephrite is the sort of mineral name for what we know as jade and the fraser river here is really known for its black nephrite jade or nephrite can come in any color of the rainbow anything you can imagine you can find in jade but here in the fraser black nephrite is actually quite common there's a beautiful piece if you get this wet and take a picture with a flash it'll actually show it as green because you know there it is just a really really really dark dark green but we call it black nephrite and look at that three little palm stones just like that now here's an interesting example a nice example the jade can form quite a skin on the outside surface that you can't really see through or test through it it's really tough to say when you get a rock like this that has been weathered and has a really thick skin on it what the inside is going to look like whether it's going to be beautiful jade in there whether it's going to be you know ho-hum you know mediocre or whether it's actually going to be serpentine inside so here's one that i will take back i will cut i will look inside and see if it's jade or serpentine and whether it's got a nice enough figure that you know you can make jewelry and stuff out of it there is my first example of possibly a good rock possibly a piece of garbage and look at that it fits in my pocket i'm gonna have very heavy pockets by the time i'm done now here is a beautiful chunk of jade you can see its surface is very smooth and shiny it has very few inclusions of any sort and where some of the sort of grain of the jade has flaked off on the surface you can really see how translucent it is that is gonna be a beauty i'm gonna carry that one back to the quad right now let's see if can get close-up camera and show you these uh spots i'm talking about this really tells me it's jade so now with the close-up camera on it see that little one spot right in the center of the screen that is a piece of the grain of the jade that is flaking off and you can actually see light passing through it that shows you how transparent this jade is i don't have my flashlight with me uh but this is a very transparent jade uh you can see it there on those cracks as well skin kind of looking you know olive colored not that bright apple green but i bet you when we cut into this it's going to be just amazing unfortunately down here low these rocks are just covered in a mud from that crazy flood we had back in the fall and i just can't identify anything down here low i was hoping near the water's edge they would be washed free some but i'm not seeing anything down here i'm gonna have to go back up top i hate it when i find these big guys that's a beaut that is beautiful jade it's a very dark green a forest green nephrite it would oh beautiful it's too big for me to carry out of here and i don't have any help today i'm all by myself so unfortunately buddy you get to stay but his little friend comes with me if you wonder why all my rocks seem to have one little wet spot i lick rocks that actually tells me uh what i'm looking at better if it's wet so a quick little lick and i can see the translucency on the surface that's one to test it's translucent this end of the claim here the hill is very very steep and this is the perfect spot for me to find jade on because there's always new things coming down the hill no that rock's not jade it's an ultramafic anyhow there's always new things coming down from above uh replenishing the hill so you know just because i walked over the same spot last year doesn't mean there's not anything here this year because new stuff came down up further on the claim where the hill isn't quite so steep where it flattens out you see a big rock down there in the water that's where it's good for panning that's where the gold settles is where it's flatter gold doesn't really settle on these steep hills very well so yeah that's why i'm not panning over here that's the place to pand over there but i lost my pan my pan is now way down the river so looking for more jade here jade here jade where are you this one was very hard to tell it took me a lot before i decided that that's just an ultramafic rock very close looking if you're wondering what ultramafic means it's just a type of rock it's a type of igneous rock that is very very heavy it's high in iron typically they're almost always dark like a dark green or a dark black dark black sure i guess that's a dark gray black anyhow they're usually very dark very heavy very hard my geology is failing me at the moment but i think i remember that jade actually is an ultra mafic rock it fits under that category yeah when i just say ultra mafix i usually just mean these dark heavy green rocks that are not jade there's your geology lesson of the day something that attracts your eye when you're looking for jade you see all these white powdery rocks that are just sort of rough on the surface and then you see something that is shiny and black or shiny and dark green there's a piece of jade looks like another big one that i can't carry let's have a look though oh yeah he's a beast i don't know why i seem to find a lot more big pieces of jade than i ever find little pieces of joint probably because the way it forms in lenses that are usually you know bigger and because it's so tough they don't break down really that's too big for me get out of here i'll pull the ground and leave it on the surface and maybe i'll call my buddy bryson over and help get these big ones out yep beautiful dark green like i mean that is a beautiful green in there might be small enough for me to carry out of here if i don't have anything else maybe slim pickings today dana and i must have done a good job last time we were here just not finding much so here's another piece like that first that's developed the skin has oxidized it's not as nice as the first i can tell there's not as much green inside of it and it's again big rock i'd rather take that last big rock out of here than this one so i'll leave this guy and another way you can tell this is jade is the sound it makes it pings because it's so dense so hard so tough when you hit it with something it makes a metallic ping sound rather than a thud sound oh i don't know should i take it the sound it makes tells me it is but that'd be two big rocks i have to pull out of here ah decisions i can't make decisions what a beautiful river the winds died down a little bit right now it makes it a lot more pleasant out here it was kind of miserable earlier what do you think everyone should take it smaller than the last easier to carry i might take it indecision that looks like a piece down in there let's go have a look pretty sure that's jade [Applause] absolutely so many things are so difficult with one hand but i'm always holding the camera there we go perch for the camera broken i think that i don't like it oh yeah that's jade look at the green beautiful piece and that one is small enough to carry usually when i'm jade hunting like this i bring a backpack with me and i just load them up in the backpack and then you know carry out way too much weight but i've been suffering from a bad back lately and i don't want to overload my back and you know be out of commission for a long time so i decided today consciously decided no backpack when i find rocks i'm only gonna carry in my hands what i can carry out of here so i don't you know compress my back anymore i will take him and him and walk way back there well there we go two maybes two for sures a couple of palm stones i'm not done yet but i'm getting tired now some people are asking and dan if you had such good gold on that claim why did you stop with the gold and go to jade well i lost my pan but that's something different entirely there is more value in this jade than there is in the gold i got in three days panning here in fact you know this one piece probably a 15 say it's a 20 pound piece i can probably cut 10 one pound pieces out of it there'll be some some scrap for sure say i got 10 one pound pieces out of that that sell for 30 to 50 dollars a pound let's go on the low end thirty thirty dollars ten pieces there's a three hundred dollar rock i did not get three hundred dollars in gold not even close i probably got thirty dollars in gold in three days so i like the jade because i can sell it now it's not like gold i just can't go down to the local gold buyer and you know sell this stuff off i have to actually put some effort at shows on my website maybe cut it down and make pendants out of it i have to put some time and effort into selling this stuff and it doesn't sell instantly it takes time to sell it but value-wise there's far more value here than you know a week's worth of panning on this claim and of course i do sell my jade on my website www.danherdprospecting.com help support my channel there's a piece of dark black nephrite look how shiny it is compared to all those rocks serve on the ground black nether right oh there's a nice piece of jade i like that that's a beauty piece oh you can hear it when it hits other rocks that's a beauty i'm definitely taking that one getting full oh i wish i could take that one she ain't coming with me today that's for sure i can't believe i have to leave that last time i was here i saw that one too and i couldn't take it then either i really need to get one of my buddies out here to carry that one out for me that is amazing absolutely amazing that one not even my buddies could get this one out listen to this one when i hit it that is a solid chunk of jade we need a crane to get that out of here that is a beast i said one more piece that's not it maybe that is a piece of black well end off the hunt with one piece of jet black nephrite bunch of greens one really nice one in there i don't know if that's jade at all we'll go home and test that and cut it and see what that turns out to be i'm not sure what that is but all in all you know what was i here i'm about four hours looking for jade and you know not a bad haul but i'm cold let's get out of here [Music] [Music] now here are some of the different pieces that i got of the jade or not to jades in some cases that day from the fraser river that is one of my favorites right there but i'm gonna test all of these and show you how you test your rocks to see if you have jade now your first step is to cut it and then put a really bright light on it to see what the figure looks like because the figure if it's ugly it's probably not even worth going on and checking to see if it's jade love that one then if you like the figure of the rock it's time to take a really bright flashlight put it behind the rock flip it over and see if it is translucent if light passes through it this one here is the rock that i didn't think in the field was actually jade and if i take a light put a light behind it no light passes through that tells me for sure this is not jade no light passing through green rock means it's just an ultra mafic put that away look at that thing crazy let's see what the light does with it okay this is a very modeled piece so it's only got sections of translucency through it so a very modeled jade or serpentine at this point and this was that bright bright green one let's look at it behind the light oh yeah look at the light going through that that is definitely the highest quality so far of jade out of all of these i love the modeled look of jade but if you want a high quality jade passing more light like that makes it a much higher quality jade or possibly serpentine still we have to check its hardness now you may have noticed i didn't try this one with the light it does pass light but i have to know for a fact that serpentine that's my sort of test for serpentine so here we go we don't know if that's jade or serpentine we know that serpentine we don't know about this one we know for a fact that is not that is just an ultra mafic and this one here we don't know for sure but i can tell you right now just by looking at that's for sure jade so let's test these for hardness i will be using my hardness testing kit these scribes here go from about three up to nine i need the six because serpentine is always softer than a six jade is always harder than a six find my six there it is right there so first i'm going to show you on a piece that i absolutely know is jade so we take the scribe here we put it down we push as hard as we can and drag you'll notice it didn't leave a mark of any sort sometimes especially with a new scribe or a rough stone let's see if i can find a rough section there's a rough section when you drag you will actually leave oh there we go little bits of metal behind don't mistake those little bits uh worn off the scribe as a scratch if it scratches it's going to scratch deep let's show you on the serpentine now i happen to know for a fact this is serpentine so it's gonna scratch i'm sure of it nice and hard there you go rub it off afterwards just to make sure that it's not just metal filings that you see and you'll see a nice deep scratch there absolutely serpentine it's too soft to be jade jade for sure serpentine for sure let's test the two maybes so i absolutely love the modeled look of this not all jade is a pure green sometimes when it's formed it has a lot of other minerals in with it and it creates these inclusions all over the place but these green areas is kind of what we want to check to see how hard it is to see if that's jade going through the matrix of this you know modeled look or if it's serpentine so pushing nice and hard as hard as you can without breaking the stone drag a line make sure that it's not just metal on the surface this is a bit more abrasive do we see a scratch left behind let's try it again that was a little inconclusive let's try over here i don't see a scratch there one more time somewhere else um right there no scratch that there is a piece of model jade nice and again let's see what we get pushing hard does not seem to be leaving a mark let's try another spot pushing really hard now see that last little bit that was just a bit of metal coming off i think oh maybe not maybe it scratched a bit over there no you see a scratch i don't there we go another piece of gorgeous gorgeous jade now there is one more test we can do to these stones to tell for sure and that's a specific gravity test serpentine has a specific gravity around two and a half jade or nephrite as the case may be has a specific gravity around three so let's go measure these now to get the specific gravity of the stone you take the weight of the stone 800 grams and divide it by the volume of the stone old-fashioned simple way to get volume take a bucket of water of some sort fill it right to the brim to the point it's overflowing or almost overflowing put your rock in let the water overflow let the water overflow and then measure how much water overflowed in the measuring cup let it settle down for a second so we get an accurate measurement so 800 grams divided by 270 milliliters comes out to a specific gravity of 2.96 jade is supposed to be around three i would say that's as close to three as you can get hey look at that reflection of me we'll do the serpentine next and that came out to a density of just over two so the specific gravity here of two means it's definitely not jade but i knew that was serpentine already so the model jade comes out to 2.85 which is a bit low for jade which is probably because it's only partly jade in there there is definitely modeled with other minerals which are lighter some of it may be serpentine in there so this is not a completely you know formed piece of jade and that's why it's density comes out a little less and the last one and the last guy comes out to 2.988 so basically three so nice piece of jade what a mess i've made on the kitchen table better clean this up before the family gets home well there you go the way you test for jade you cut it you look at its figure you see if a thin slice passes light you check its hardness and if you want to double check its jade do a specific gravity test that's how you check to see if what you found is jade serpentine or just an ultramafic rock well that was a lot of fun i love jade hunting love being out there on the river even in those miserable conditions love fine and jade my favorites i only cut three or four of these but my two favorites for absolutely that piece of model jade was amazing i love the look of that model jade it might not be your typical you know solid green that you've come to expect but i love the figure in there and of course that bright green one is just something else those are my two favorite from the day for sure hope you enjoyed the video if you did please leave me that thumbs up if i haven't earned your subscription already i hope i've earned your subscription now and a big thanks to everyone for watching especially my patrons because the support of my patrons i get to make these weekly episodes up day i heard prospecting hope you all had an amazing day until the next video bye let's look at jade [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Dan Hurd

Views: 9,834,708

Keywords: gold panning, prospecting, panning for gold, mining, gold, rock hunting, rock hound, rock collecting, british columbia, bc, video, canada, finding gold, gemstones, gem stone, gems, treasure hunting, jade, jadite, nephrite, nepherite, neferite, bc Jade, BC nephrite, jade carving, testing jade, how to identify jade, how to find jade, green jade

Id: Bq7U-QVhPvM

Length: 24min 1sec (1441 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 27 2022