BAT CAVE JASPER

Perched in a cave high above Ochoco Lake, Bat Cave jasper has quietly earned its place among other notable Oregon jaspers.

- BY BEN KANIUTH

Also known as Rim jasper, this Crook County material was discovered in the late 1960s by the Quant family, tracing along the Ochoco Rim as thin seams stubbornly tucked within basalt. Within those narrow seams holds a layered jasper of warm tans and browns, with some lighter cream colors and even red. It almost looks like a layered cake. The original cave produced some of the very best of this material, with workings extending nearly eight feet into the rimrock. Now, the scarcity of accessing this material for sale is just as difficult as if you were freeing those narrow seams yourself. Only the very determined might find some smaller quantities along the deposit line, given significant effort to remove from the basalt host. The history of Bat Cave jasper extends further beyond the stone itself. While this jasper deposit continues along the Ochoco Rim, many other varieties were found here, too. Among them was a sister deposit occurring as a plume-bearing variant found not far from the main seam. It was eventually flooded over by the rising waters of the Ochoco Reservoir before it could be explored fully.

READING THE LAYERS: ORIENTING BAT CAVE JASPER