BC's Gemstones: Jade, Agate and Opal

Gold gets the history books, but British Columbia is also gem country. Here is a short introduction we at UP8 put together from official sources.

Jade, the provincial gemstone

Jade was adopted as BC's official gemstone in 1968. BC jade is mostly nephrite, an extremely tough material. The Legislative Assembly notes that Indigenous people have used jade to craft knives and axe heads since time immemorial, and that BC is the largest producer and exporter of nephrite jade in the world.

The province's first active jade deposits were found around Lillooet; from 1957 until the end of the 1960s, more rough jade came from the Lillooet area than from the rest of the world combined. Large deposits were later found in northern BC, at Dease Lake, Mount Ogden and Cassiar.

Opal and agate in volcanic rock

Parts of the Okanagan are built from volcanic rock. A BC Geological Survey paper describes the Klinker precious opal deposit in the Okanagan area: there, precious opal, common opal and banded agate fill fractures, gas bubbles (vesicles) and other open spaces in Eocene volcanic rocks of the Kamloops Group. That is the same basic way many agates form: silica-rich water filling a cavity, layer by layer.

You can see that volcanic story in our own cabinet. Several of our Oliver cobbles are vesicular or amygdaloidal volcanic rocks, with filled gas bubbles, and some carry agate or chalcedony. Browse them in the Minerals cabinet.

We don't publish directions to active deposits or claims. If you go looking, start with the official map tools in our post on recreational panning and Free Miner Certificates, and always check land status first.

Much of the country described here is the traditional territory of First Nations. In the South Okanagan and Similkameen, that is the territory of the Syilx (Okanagan) people, whose member communities include the Osoyoos, Penticton, Upper Similkameen and Lower Similkameen Indian Bands. We are grateful to live and work here.

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