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A Timeless Fascination: Biggs Junction Picture Jasper
While picture jasper can be found throughout the world, the most diverse, fascinating varieties are found in Biggs Junction, located in northern Oregon. The jasper found here began to form about half a million years ago due to high levels of volcanic activity that created basalt flats where it’s found. The stone is composed of silica while minerals and iron contribute to the variety of intricate, colored layers.
When you look at this specimen of Biggs Junction Picture Jasper, you see fascination.
Also hidden in these basalt flats with the picture jasper are fossils that provide an idea as to what ecosystems were like when this jasper was forming. The documentation of fish fossils shows that the sediment used to form the jasper was carried by streams before its exposure to lava, which gives insights as to how the geography of Biggs Junction was formed. Through discovering picture jasper and its surroundings, humans fuel their fascination with the past and find answers to the old, unknown world.
Picture jasper wasn’t discovered in Oregon until the 1960s, due to difficulty extracting it from the surrounding basalt. When U.S route 97 was constructed, highway workers found the stone and were fascinated by its features. The jasper quickly became recognized for its intricate beauty and a profit was made through selling it to local rock shops that began to open. As news of the discovery spread, mineral and rock collectors traveled to the Biggs Junction area to attain polished forms of the jasper and incorporate them into jewelry, such as necklaces, brooches, and belt buckles.
The attraction and fascination with stones, such as picture jasper, has developed from both mythology and evolution.
Throughout history, stones and minerals have been associated with metaphysical properties that many people are fascinated by. Even though it was discovered hundreds of years after stones were incorporated into lore, picture jasper has since been associated with uncovering a deep connection to the earth, gaining global responsibility, and finding balance and harmony for those who possess it.
If you try to understand this fascination from a scientific perspective, it can be connected to evolution. Take the bowerbird, for example, which collects objects it finds attractive, often including rocks, and decorates its nest to attract mates. This would suggest that an attraction or fascination with beautiful stones results from a correlation between the eyes and the mind, but that it took thousands of years to develop.
Although Biggs Junction picture jasper was only discovered sixty years ago, many people were quickly fascinated by both its picturesque formation that was incorporated into decorative ornaments and the opportunity to capitalize and make a profit from its collection.