Dragon Blood Jasper Identification Guide

What Dragon Blood Jasper Looks Like

Dragon blood jasper (also 'dragon stone' or 'dragon blood stone') is a green-and-red ornamental stone — typically a mix of green epidote and red piemontite/iron-stained quartz, marketed as a jasper. Its hallmark is bold mottled patches of forest/olive green splashed with deep blood-red. Most material is opaque and takes a high polish.

Key visual cues:

• Color: olive-to-forest green with crimson/blood-red blotches.
• Luster: waxy to vitreous when polished.
• Transparency: opaque.
• Pattern: mottled, blotchy green and red zones.

Step-by-Step Field-ID Checklist

1. Confirm the green-and-red mottling — the diagnostic look.
2. Test hardness. Quartz-rich material scratches glass (~7); epidote-rich zones are ~6–7. It should resist a steel knife.
3. Check opacity. Hold to light; dragon blood is opaque.
4. Inspect the polish — it takes a glassy, hard polish typical of silicate ornamental stone.
5. Look for natural mottling vs uniform dyed color (dye looks too even and may concentrate in cracks).

Diagnostic Tests

• Mohs hardness: ~6.5–7 overall; scratches glass and resists a knife.
• Streak: white to pale (red zones may streak faintly reddish).
• Fracture: conchoidal to uneven; no rock cleavage.
• Density: ~2.6–3.0 g/cm³ depending on epidote content.
• Acid: inert to dilute HCl.
• Magnetism: none.

Common Look-Alikes and How to Tell Them Apart

• Bloodstone (heliotrope): dark green chalcedony with small red spots; dragon blood has larger, bolder green-and-red blotches and often contains epidote (greener, more mottled) rather than chalcedony.
• Unakite: pink-and-green (pink orthoclase + green epidote); dragon blood's red is deeper/crimson and bloodier, not salmon-pink.
• Green-and-red dyed quartzite/howlite: dye concentrates in fractures and the base is uniform; natural dragon blood shows organic, varied mottling and quartz hardness.
• Ruby-in-zoisite (anyolite): has distinct ruby crystals and black hornblende; dragon blood is mottled green-red without discrete ruby crystals.
• Red jasper with green: check for the characteristic epidote green and crimson combination unique to dragon blood.

Where It Is Found

The most cited source is Western Australia, where the epidote-piemontite-quartz material is mined; other green-red ornamental stones sold under the name come from various localities. It forms in metamorphic/altered igneous settings where epidote and iron-rich minerals develop together. It is sold as tumbled stones, cabochons, and carvings; note that 'dragon blood jasper' is a trade name rather than a strict mineralogical species.