On Sun, 13 Jul 2003 10:07:10 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry
(Collett Calverley) wrote:

Can any one tell me of a possible source for a pendant made from jade
that has a fly or other small insect embedded in it.
A Canadian source would be a great help.
Collett C

Collett,

I suspect that you meant to ask for Amber, not jade. Amber is the fossil tree
resin which is known for occasionally trapping prehistoric insects and plant
frangments and the like. Made especially famous with the general public by the
"Jurassic Park" movies and the novel on which they were based, which had folks
cloning dinosaurs from DNA extracted from biting insects trapped in Amber.
Nice Fiction, and fun films, but a bit of a stretch, scientifically..

Jade is a metamorphic rock, formed under conditions of heat and pressure which
totally preclude the possibility of any organic inclusions, unless someone were
to take a bit of jade, drill a hole, drop in a fly, and fill it over with epoxy
or something...

Most of the amber on the market will be either from the Dominican Republic, or
from the Baltic sea. Either source can produce samples with included insects.
Baltic amber is usually more costly, and seems to vary a lot more in
appearance., being found in a range from opaque to transparent, from pale almost
whiteish yellow to darker yellows, greenish yellows, browns, and other similar
colors. Dominican amber is usually fairly transparent and golden color, often
with fewer inclusions, and is a little more common on the market, though since
the breakup of the Soviet Union, more baltic amber has been reaching western
markets, often in finished jewelry.. Really good and well preserved insects can
raise the price of a piece of amber rather dramatically, but it's not as hard to
find pieces with partial. damaged insects or parts, or every very tiny ones that
are harder to recognize. Much more common are samples with bits of plant matter
or unidentifiable stuff.

Peter Rowe