<p>Purple jade (= finely-crystalline jadeite-K-feldspar-lawsonite-aegerine metamorphite) (10.2 cm across at its widest) - blueschist facies metaphonolite from Bursa Province (probably near Akpinar in southern Bursa Province), northwestern Turkey.
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<hr><p>Purple or lavender-colored jade is very rare.  Such rocks are known from Burma, Turkey, and parts of Central America.  Purple jade from Turkey is a polymineralic metamorphic rock with a complex origin.  Published research indicates that this material was originally Paleozoic- or Mesozoic-aged phonolite lava, an alkaline, intermediate, extrusive igneous rock.  During the Late Cretaceous, at about 80 Ma, blueschist facies metamorphism (= high-pressure, low-temperature) altered the phonolites into rocks dominated by jadeite pyroxene, potassium feldspar, lawsonite, and aegerine pyroxene, with minor monazite, phengite, and secondary sericite.
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During the Cenozoic, tectonic uplift, surficial exposure, and paleoerosion of these blueschist-facies rocks resulted in them being incorporated in landslide deposits (debris flow breccias).  Turkish purple jade is collected as loose paleoclasts eroded from these Middle Miocene debris flow breccias.
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.flickr.com/people/47445767@N05">James St. John</a>
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<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/14915985567/">Purple jade (metaphonolite) (Paleozoic or Mesozoic protolith; Late Cretaceous metamorphism, 80 Ma; paleoclast in Middle Miocene debris flow breccia; Bursa Province, northwestern Turkey)</a>