Jade Hunt

These pieces of jade were born about 150 million years ago, in an ancient trench off the California coast. As the tectonic plates ground past each other the overriding North American Plate scraped a large amount of material from the subducting Farallon plate and this material now comprises the surface of coastal California. Under high pressure and low temperature, jade is formed as the minerals serpentine and actinolite are smashed into a tight fibrous crystalline lattice, to include iron molecules for the green color. Eventually, erosion brings this beautiful stone to the surface and we are able to find it on the beach!

Which beach?
Jade Cove in Big Sur.

Many visitors come to the area looking for jade, but the true bounty is to be found offshore. Free-divers and SCUBA-divers pull up the most jade and many are able to make a living hunting for the gemstone when the waves are calm enough to allow for swimming. I have seen divers bring over $1000 worth of jade up from one single 45 minute dive. Going to a depth of about 30 feet, they will dig in the gravel and reach into tight cracks in hopes of grabbing a nice specimen. There is an entire cave made of jade down there, and you can find videos of it on youtube. The jade that is pulled from Jade Cove in California is highly prized for its beauty and dark, translucent green color. We will explore this topic in much more detail in further posts by meeting with artisans who work the jade into jewelry. The stone has become a part of the personality of the Big Sur coastline. There is a yearly jade festival that is well-attended in Big Sur and it is a popular stone that you may see many locals wearing jewelry of, often left in its natural shape having been weathered for 100 million years down to soft edges.

The author diving for jade at Jade Cove, Big Sur, California