Jasper vs. Chert — What's the Difference?

Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or chalcedony and other mineral phases, is an opaque, impure variety of silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in color; and rarely blue. The common red color is due to iron(III) inclusions.

Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a chemical precipitate or a diagenetic replacement, as in petrified wood.Chert is typically composed of the petrified remains of siliceous ooze, the biogenic sediment that covers large areas of the deep ocean floor, and which contains the silicon skeletal remains of diatoms, silicoflagellates, and radiolarians.

An opaque cryptocrystalline variety of quartz that may be red, yellow, or brown.

A variety of silica that contains microcrystalline quartz.

(obsolete) Any bright-coloured kind of chalcedony apart from cornelian.

A siliceous rock of chalcedonic or opaline silica occurring in limestone.

An opaque, impure variety of quartz, of red, yellow, and other dull colors, breaking conchoidally with a smooth surface.

Massive, usually dull-colored and opaque, quartzite, hornstone, impure chalcedony, or other flint-like mineral.

Jasperware pottery.

(countable) A flint-like tool made from chert.

A wasp.

An impure, massive, flintlike quartz or hornstone, of a dull color.

A person, a guy, especially seen as naïve or simple.

Variety of silica containing microcrystalline quartz

(transitive) To decorate with, or as if with, jasper.

An opaque, impure variety of quartz, of red, yellow, and other dull colors, breaking with a smooth surface. It admits of a high polish, and is used for vases, seals, snuff boxes, etc. When the colors are in stripes or bands, it is called striped jasper or banded jasper. The Egyptian pebble is a brownish yellow jasper.

An opaque form of quartz; red or yellow or brown or dark green in color; used for ornamentation or as a gemstone