Colorful, 2.75" Polished Coquina Jasper Bowl

Coquina Jasper is also known by the trade names "Arabic Script Jasper", "Elephant Skin Jasper", "Calligraphy Stone" or "Mariam Jasper". It is a fossiliferous sedimentary rock mined from the Himalayan Mountains in India.

This stone started out as a silica-rich mud full of accumulated shell fragments known as a coquina. Coquina is actually the Spanish word for cockleshells or shellfish. Coquinas accumulate in high-energy marine environments such as coastlines where currents and waves result in the abrasion, fracturing, and sorting of the shells that compose them. Over time, these shell fragments fossilized and the silica-rich mud turned into a jasper. The orange coloration is a result of iron oxidation.

Jasper is a term that can be applied to an opaque variety of chalcedony. The opaqueness is due to a higher concentration of impurities mixed with silica/quartz compared to other varieties of silica, such as quartz or agates. Like agate it may form in a wide variety of colors, and is often multi-colored. In most cases, jasper forms when silica-rich fluids permeate throughout a soft sediment or volcanic debris deposit. The fluids then crystallize around the particles/impurities, resulting in a cementation process. Most often, the impurities present determine the coloration of the deposit following solidification, but other factors can play a role in the color of what is now considered a jasper.