 Most jade on the market is composed of nephrite; jadeite is very rare and in its emerald-green, translucent form is called Imperial Jade. | Jade is the gem name for mineral aggregates composed of either or both of two minerals, Jadeite and Nephrite. Jadeite is a sodium-rich aluminous pyroxene; nephrite is a fine-grained, calcium-rich, magnesium, iron, aluminous amphibole. All jade is composed of fine-grained, highly intergrown, interlocking crystals of one or both of these minerals. Though neither mineral is very hard (6-7), jade is one of the toughest gem minerals known. |  BC Polar Nephrite Jade Bear and Salmon fish on Nephrite Jade Rough |
 Jade mountains in northwestern B.C. east of Juneau, Alaska | The world jade market is estimated at 300 tonnes per year, with three quarters of this originating from British Columbia. The price of raw jade varies from less than $10 to $100 per kilogram depending on quality and quantity. The best B.C. nephrite is bought by local artists and transformed into artwork which is in demand internationally. |  |
 Cutting jade boulders at Jade West’s Ogden Mountain mine | The 2008 Beijing Olympics reignited China’s interest in nephrite. Dubbed the “Stone of Heaven”, China used it in Olympic medals and ran a campaign to remind its residents that nephrite is the country’s traditional jade. The subsequent surge in demand resulted in skyrocketing jade prices. Some export-oriented, jewelry-grade jade can sell for $200 a kilogram – a 10-fold increase from a decade ago. |  |
 Chinese Nephrite Jade Carving   | 
Dragon Nephrite Jade  BC Polar Nephrite Jade Elephant figurine 
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 Small-scale miners search for stone as dump trucks dump tailings. | Police in Myanmar said they have abandoned efforts to find the bodies of jade miners who were buried when a mine dump collapsed. The 60m (200ft) high mountain of debris enveloped 70 makeshift huts at its foot, burying miners as they slept. Itinerant jade pickers and their families scratch a living scavenging for scraps of jade in the towering heaps of debris left behind by mining companies. |  |
