Its name comes from the term jade. It is the nineteenth century, in 1863, that jadeite was differentiated from nephritis. This is a pyroxene resulting from metamorphism of serpentines high in sodium. Before the nineteenth century both jadeite and nephrite were called with the generic term “ jade “.
Jadeite has appeared in China in the middle of the eighteenth century, from Burma, all the old jades of China prior to this period are nephrites. Jadeite without the presence of the metal ions which color it would be colorless, milky white in fact, but the dark green varieties are colored by iron and the purple ones by manganese. Jadeite “imperial jade” is colored by chromium.
The “magnetite-jade”, is the name for a black jade with magnetite inclusions.
The chloromelanite is the name of a dark green pyroxene,veined black, which is likened to jade.
The kosmochlore, with a composition close to the jadeite, is a sodium and chromium silicate found in a meteorite (in Greek from “ Kosmos” and “chlor” for green), which composes chloromelanite. Its density increases with the concentration of chromium and can reach 3.6.
The Maw-sit-sit, that was discovered in 1963 by Gubelin in Burma in the same deposits of the imperial jade, in north-western Burma, in Kachin state, is actually a rock, a mixture of several minerals such as : chromian jadeite, chromite, ureyite, symplektite, kosmochlore, chromian amphibole and zeolites, mainly natrolite, and its white veins consist of albite in a gangue of serpentine. This is one of the rocks in which the concentration of chromium that gives it its green color is the highest. Sometimes jade-albite is called a “ maw-sit-sit” with veins of white albite.
Throughout Asia, jade is a symbol of luck and health, it is offered for all occasions: births, weddings, birthdays, graduation and even to sign professional contracts.