Slice of Bumblebee jasper, black base

An unusual color mix in the mineral world. The Bumblebee Jasper actually reminds this insect with its black and orange/yellow lines. This stone was found at the base of a still active volcano in West Java: the Papandayan. It is not exactly a jasper, but it often has a botryoidal structure (crystals radiated from a nucleus), like some jasper. These yellow/orange and black bands formed with the compression of layers escaped from the volcano. The black lines are loaded with hematite, after pyrite oxidation, and the orange-yellow veins are charged with Orpiment, an arsenic sulphide. This stone spread in the Western world from 1990, when the workers that collect sulfur among the toxic fumaroles of the volcano, began to collect these magnificent curiosities. A bumblebee of rare colors...