PRODUCT INFORMATION

General Description

Stromatolite stone was discovered twenty something years ago in Madagascar (by one of Toprock regional partners Denis Mboho who was running around in the bush and picked it up and brought it back in). It is nice solid material without cracks and lovely primordial green with nice black ring patterns and recognised and confirmed it as Stromatolite fossil stone. Similar to the 2 300 000 000 year old Stromatolites that we get in South Africa, except the Malagasy ones are around 60 - 80 million years old from when the African continent broke up. Our South African ones are the oldest in the world.

It is an ancient bacterial growth. One of the first living organisms on planet Earth. We started making polished products from it from that time, but everybody else also has supplies of this rough material in Madagascar now and sells it as Kambamba/Kombamba Jasper. It comes from Kombambi Bay in Madagascar and the Malagasy lapidary folks had no clue it was Stromatolite, (Nick is a fossil nut) so it has been sold as Kambamba Jasper for years, but both names are perfectly correct. I have seen controversial articles on it on the net, comparing it to Ocean Jasper (which is a completely different material that is of volcanic origins and is a chalcedony filled coral reef formation. Clearly visible if you have seen all of the various layers, rough material and have been to the regions it comes from, which we have)

In its natural form in shows the typical Stromatolite cyanobacteria dome structure wit the typical ring patterns in pyroxene/aegirine/arfvedsonite green matrix. This is highly lithified material which is fairly heavy and polishes exceptional well with a high shine finish.

Product Data

Locality = Mahajanga, Madagascar
Grade = Very Good Grade
Size = 470 x 205 x 90 mm