As an important material found in traditional Chinese jade culture, nephrite jade encompasses eight thousand years of history and development throughout all of China. Research on ancient nephrite jade objects display the phenomenon of partial or complete whitening, but research on mechanism of this phenomenon remains scarce. This paper is a comprehensive and systematic review on the mechanism and characteristics of the whitening phenomenon of nephrite jade, including the weathering of raw materials and how heating has altered artifacts. The thermodynamics of heated nephrite jade is also summarized. The various forms of weathered or altered nephrite jade are discussed. It is speculated that both human behavior and natural conditions lead to the whitening of jade.