Published June 2017  •  Updated February 2024  •  Read Time: 6 minutes
Desert Jasper is a delightful polychrome Jasper mined in Madagascar.  It was first discovered in the 21st century when prospectors were searching for another deposit of Ocean Jasper.  While both are sold as “jaspers,” Ocean Jasper is actually a Rhyolite, while Desert Jasper is a true jasper.  It typically is a mixture of reddish-orange, greyish-blue, and neutral tans, but occasionally happy hues of purple, pink, green and yellow show up.  Energetically it is both cheerful and practical.  It deepens our connection to Mother Earth and all her children great and small.  It can help us find a new beginning or make it through a gentle ending.

Desert Jasper

Desert Jasper Meaning

Spiritual Healing Properties

Desert Jasper has a wonderfully soothing and practical energy that makes it an excellent tool for all kinds of healing work.  It has a cheerful and grounding vibration, which helps to stabilize the spirit, heart, mind and body.  Desert Jasper is particularly comforting after we have engaged in hard spiritual work, which may have left us feeling somewhat depleted and out of balance.  Desert Jasper helps us to get steady again and refill our own well of energy.  Desert Jasper deepens our connection to Mother Earth and helps us to better communicate with animals, plants, minerals and the other non-human entities that dwell on this plane.  When we are feeling healthy and happy, Desert Jasper increases our sense of awe in the world around us, and invites to contemplate the many mysteries and magic.  Desert Jasper inspires positive changes, new beginnings, gentle endings, and renewal of hope and happiness.  It has a tranquil and very kind energy that is deeply pleasing to the soul.

Metaphysical Properties Desert Jasper
Chakra All
Element Earth
Numerology 6
Zodiac Leo

Emotional Healing Properties

Desert Jasper calms worries and inspires a cheerful outlook on life.  It offers strong support during times of change.  If we are the ones making the change, it gives us stamina and exuberance for the tasks ahead.  It offers both creativity and grounding so that we can move forward boldly and be assured of a positive outcome.  If the change is happening against our will, Desert Jasper helps us to adjust to the new reality more easily.  It comforts and offers us courage.  It promises us that if we can relax into the present moment that we will find a steady sense of tranquility, despite whatever chaos is happening around us.  It helps us to breath deeply and settle into what is real, rather than longing for something that can no longer be.  Desert Jasper helps us to start over when we’ve suffered a major or minor setback.  It brings gentle endings, but also beautiful new beginnings.  When used for relationship work, Desert Jasper can attract new friends and lovers, as well as rekindling the flames of passion.  It can help us bring conflict to a close, and find resolution that satisfies all parties.

Mental Healing Properties

Desert Jasper encourages the mind to be organized and think in a linear fashion.  It helps us to create and maintain healthy habits so that our everyday life run smoothly.  It is a wonderful tool for practical problem-solving, particularly for mundane problems that have an oversize affect on our well-being.  Desert Jasper helps us to see problems, both big and small, very clearly. More importantly, once a problem is identified, Desert Jasper shows us the practical solution that will solve it as quickly and efficiently as possible.  Desert Jasper is recommended for writers, creatives, and thinkers who are stuck behind a mental block and need to move past it.  It has a happy energy that can pierce through gloomy thoughts and help us turn our attention to more positive and useful modes of being.

Physical Healing Properties

Desert Jasper is used by metaphysical healers to help with insomnia caused by anxiety.  It is also said to be helpful for allergy-relief, as well as conditions affecting the gallbladder, stomach and intestines.

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Desert Jesper Mineralogy

Where does Desert Jasper come from?

Desert Jasper is a polychrome jasper that mined only in Madagascar.  (Other notable deposits for polychrome Jasper are in the India and the United States.)

Mining and Treatments

Desert Jasper is artisanally mined near the surface of the earth in shallow pit mines.  It is is fully natural, enhanced only by cutting and polishing.

Madagascar Placeholder
Madagascar

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Mineral Family

Desert Jasper is a marketing name for Madagascar polychrome Jasper.  It is a Silicate mineral. Silicates are minerals which contain the elements Silicon (a light gray shiny metal) and Oxygen (a colorless gas). Together, these two elements form a tetrahedron – a shape similar to a pyramid – with a Silicon atom in the center and Oxygen atoms at each of the four corners. These tetrahedra connect with other chemical structures, in six different ways, to form various minerals and rocks. There are six main groups of Silicate minerals, and these main groups are further subdivided into secondary subdivisions, such as Quartz and Feldspar. The Quartz family can be further divided into two categories, macrocrystalline and microcrystalline, all of which can be colorless or appear in every shade of the raimbow.  Macrocrystalline quartz has well-formed crystals that are large enough to be seen by the naked eye, for example, Amethyst or Clear Quartz.  Microcrystalline quartz has crystals so small they can only be seen through a microscope.  These are typically grouped together under the name Chalcedony, or it’s subcategories Agate and Jasper.

Desert Jasper’s energy works well with its family – other true Jaspers.  Try it in combination with Bloodstone, Brecciated JasperMookaite JasperPicture JasperRed Jasper, and Yellow Jasper.

Desert Jasper Formation and Crystal Associates

Jaspers typically form in the cavities of igneous rocks, but it can also be found in metamorphic and sedimentary rocks.  Desert Jaspers are found in igneous rocks on or near the surface of the earth.  Following volcanic activity, magma and lava are slowly transformed into igneous rocks broken up with cracks, fissures, other hollows.  Jasper is formed long afterwards, when silica-bearing water permeates the rocks and begins to fill these crevices.  As the water flows, it picks up an assortment of other trace minerals which give Jasper its many colors and patterns.

Desert Jasper’s energy works well with its “friends” – crystal associates formed in the same geological environment.  Try it in combination with Ocean Jasper

Mineralogy Jasper Geology
Chemical Formula SiO2
Cleavage None
Color All colors, often multicolored and spotted
Crystal System Hexagonal/trigonal
Form/Habit Cryptocrystalline 
Fracture Conchoidal
Hardness – Mohs Scale 7
Luminescence None
Luster Vitreous/earthy
Mineral Family Tectosilicates
Specific Gravity 2.7
Streak White
Transparency Opaque

History of Desert Jasper

The name “Jasper” is a generic name given to any spotted or multicolored stone.  It comes from the French word jaspre, which literally means “spotted or speckled stone”   Some Jaspers are “true Jaspers,” meaning they are an opaque variety of spotted Chalcedony, like Brecciated Jasper.  However, monochromatic chalcedony is often sold using the name Jasper, such Red Jasper, as is multicolored chalcedony without spots, like Desert Jasper. The name Jasper is also given to a variety of spotted rocks, most often a form of Rhyolite, for example, Ocean Jasper.  Because so many different types of stones may be referred to as a Jasper, it is difficult to know exactly which stone is being referenced in ancient and medieval writings.

Desert Jasper is one of the newer varieties, discovered in 2006 along the dry Northwestern coast of Madagascar, while prospectors were searching for more deposits of the famously colorful Ocean Jasper.  While both varieties of Jaspers have bright colors, Desert Jasper lacks the orbicular spots that make Ocean Jasper so distinctive.  Desert Jasper is a variety of Polychrome Jasper, which means “painted with many colors.”  Polychrome Jasper is found in several locations worldwide, with each deposit having a very distinct coloring and character.  The variety found in Madagascar is notable for its desert-hues and strong contrasting colors.  Northwestern Madagascar is primarily composed of sedimentary rocks and most likely Desert Jasper is a combination of minerals and limestone that have been silicified, in a similar fashion to that of  Mookaite Jasper in Australia.  Northwestern Madagascar is home to Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park named after its remarkable limestone sculptures.  Tsingy is Malagasy for “the place where one cannot walk barefoot.”  In October 2022, this area was designated a Geological Heritage Site, meaning it is among the most significant places in the world for studying earth sciences.

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