in short

This site is about Guatemalan jadeite. Narrowly, the subject is the discoveries, since 1999, of blue jadeites south of the Motogua river.

Along with the finding of Olmec blues has come discoveries of jadeites not used by the Olmecs or Mayas or indeed anyone before our time.

There are and will be consequences of all this for meso-American geology as well as many aspects of the pre-history of Central America.

The author has been a major figure in the developments since 1999.

about jade

Introductions or surverys of jade are readily available. There are leads from the links ( a comprensive site is www.friendsofjade.org ) in this site and some of the bibliographical citations.

A position of the author is the the user knows that jade exists as two different minerals - nephrite and jadeite. Jadeite is harder, denser, less tenacious, comes in a larger range of colors and is rarer than nephrite

Jadeite exits in commercially useable quantities only in Burma (now "Myamar"), Siberia and in Guatemala on either side of a short section of the Motagua river.

In general (but not always, as will be seen) Guatemalan jadeite is less exciting  as gem material than the finer Asian jadeites. One usually expects that Guatemalan jadeite will have larger grains and be less transluscent.

Still, there are Motagua jadeites that are unique in their grains, patterns, inclusions and, most importantly here, color. The most sought after colors in Guatemala now are a variety of blue, blue-greys and blue greens - in short, the Olmec blues. There are, besides, other newly discovered colors. One is a transluscent, pale lavender. There will be other revelations.

We will assume here that the user of the site knows of the possibly sacred significance of blue jade to the Olmecs and, later, to the Costa Ricans as well as emerald green (or "Chitzen green") to the Mayans.

Many of the topics above can be pursured in the links or citations. However, most of the material in the longer texts is available nowhere else.

We admire a big boulder just cleaned from pulling from the rio Tambor.