Yes, that's right. Also, there's also a cultural preference at play there. The darker greens, medium greens with dark mottling, or translucent "silvery"-looking greenstone are more prized by Maori (and us Pakeha who have been influenced culturally), whereas the Chinese prefer very light translucent porcelain-like milky greens for the nephrite, or very "bright" jadite (no jadeite at all in NZ).
So the darker coloured jade hitting NZ's shores from elsewhere isn't the premium-quality stuff, but as you say the toughness/brittleness of nephrite/bowenite vs jadeite are different. Although there's brittle nephrite in NZ as well, it's hardly the stuff that anyone bothers extracting.
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Date: 2009-08-10 11:39 am (UTC)So the darker coloured jade hitting NZ's shores from elsewhere isn't the premium-quality stuff, but as you say the toughness/brittleness of nephrite/bowenite vs jadeite are different. Although there's brittle nephrite in NZ as well, it's hardly the stuff that anyone bothers extracting.