silicates
Serpentine
- Also known as
- new jadeboweniteantigoritelizarditeverd antique
- Crystal system
- monoclinic
- Hardness
- 2.5–5.5 on the Mohs scale
- Lustre
- greasy
- Colour
- Green, yellow-green, brown, near black
- Where it forms
- By hydration of the magnesium-rich rocks of the earth’s mantle, when seawater penetrates them at mid-ocean ridges and in subduction zones. Serpentinite is what mantle rock becomes when it meets water.
- Chiefly from
- Cornwall, EnglandLiguria, ItalyCalifornia, United StatesNew Caledonia
Why it is that colour
Iron, and nickel in some varieties. The mottled patterning that gives the group its name resembles snakeskin.
Safety
This depends on which serpentine it is and demands care. Antigorite and lizardite are platy and not asbestiform. Chrysotile is the third member of the group and it is white asbestos — the most widely used asbestos in the world and a proven cause of asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma. Serpentinite bodies frequently contain chrysotile veins, so cutting, grinding or drilling serpentine rock is a genuine and serious hazard. Polished ornaments of the massive varieties are safe to handle.
Where it comes from
Common worldwide. Much of it is sold as jade with a qualifier. California designated serpentinite its state rock in 1965, and an attempt to remove the designation in 2010 over the asbestos connection failed after opposition from geologists.
Historical use
Carved since antiquity because it is soft and takes fine detail. Cornish serpentine from the Lizard peninsula supplied a Victorian ornamental industry that still operates. Verd antique, a serpentine breccia, was a Roman decorative stone.
Recorded as history and attributed where possible. That a stone was used for something establishes that people used it, not that it worked.
What is attributed to it, and since when
European lapidaries treat serpentine as protective against snakebite and poison, on the straightforward resemblance of its markings to snakeskin. That is a clear case of sympathetic reasoning. Its modern meanings are New Age.
Described, not endorsed. Dating a claim is not the same as assessing it — but an association that first appears in a book published in 1985 is not an ancient inheritance, whatever the label says. A sincere account of feeling better is compatible with the stone doing nothing — see the placebo effect.
Sold as this, but not
Worth knowing
Serpentine is a group rather than a species, and here that distinction has consequences rather than being merely tidy. The group's three main members have the same chemistry and different structures: lizardite is flat, antigorite is corrugated, and chrysotile is rolled into hollow tubes. Rolled into tubes, it is a fibre. As a fibre, it is asbestos.
So a serpentine ornament may be entirely harmless, and the rock it was cut from may contain veins of one of the most dangerous industrial materials of the twentieth century, and the difference is how the same sheets of atoms happened to curl.
The mantle connection is worth knowing too. Serpentinite is what most of the earth's mantle would become if it met water, and the reaction releases hydrogen, which supports microbial life at deep-sea vents. It is a serious candidate for where life began.
Identity checked against IMA-CNMNC master list, June 2025.