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Agate Formation The mysteries surrounding the formation of agates have long been debated and argued over for thousands of years, as long as they have been collected and fashioned into beautiful Jewellery. It has only been in the last 200 years however that serious investigative attempts have been made to explain their formation. We will not attempt in this page to cover all the detail as you will probably drift off into another world well before getting half way through the explanation!! but we will cover the basics which are interesting and never ceases to amaze us Agate is chemically a form of micro crystalline quartz called chalcedony. Chalcedony in it's purest form is colourless to pale grey so Agate essentially is an impure form of Chalcedony. The distinguishing features of agate is the coloured bands which are caused by natural impurities such as iron (red/brown colour) or manganese & coboltAgates occur mainly in small rounded nodules (lumps) within volcanic rock (lava). The agates essentially just occupied the sites of gas bubbles which formed as the lava cooled over millions of Years research has shown that agates do not form in the final cooling stages of volcanic rocks but only after complete cooling and burial of the flows to a depth of 100 to 200 metres. When this occurs,silica bearing solutions penetrate the lava and fill the bubbles with agate forming material The next stage is too complex to cover in this page, and to be honest people still argue today on exactly what happens when the impurities enter the bubbles! but the banding variation very slowly occurs deep below the lava surface. After millions of years of weathering above ground the agate nodules become exposed on the ground surface and this is when you can go and collect them! So too summarise agate is impure chalcedony and is formed mainly in lava gas bubbles. The banding occurs over a very long time and colours are caused by impurities in the surrounding rocks such as iron which gives the very traditional red or brown coloursIf you want to get more information on the exact ways the bands are formed contact us and we will try to explain further |
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