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Jade Mother Lode Found in Guatemala

Posted by michael on from the romancing-the-stone dept.

BrodyVess writes "Scientists searching in Guatemala have found the mother lode of jade that was used by Mayan and Olmec civilizations. They had been searching for 50+ years to try and find the source for ancient artifacts from the civilizations, and have found a mining site as large as the current burma mines, and was apparently used for over a thousand years. My favorite part- boulders of jade as big as a school bus."

3 of 17 comments (clear)

  1. can you say Gold^H^H^H^H Jade Rush? by kilroy_hau · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So now Guatemala will have a lot of "explorers" trying to exploit this mother lode, thinking about jewels the size of buses and geting rich quick, as it happened in the old west of the U.S.A.

    And destroying the archeological treasures in their path.

    --


    Kilroy was here!
  2. Downside by Picass0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Of couse that much jade devalues the world market price of jade, and hence a find of that size is conterproductive.

    Or they can build a consortium (like diamond sellers) to control the flow of jade and keep the price artificially high.

  3. Re:pictures? by geoswan · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here is an article with pictures, about Guatemalen Jade. No pictures of the bus sized nuggets though.