agate, the dutch variations...!!
All pictures are made by me, all Agates found by me, carved and polished by me...
Agate is a rock consisting primarily of cryptocrystalline silica, Agate is essentially quartz, but with banding, colors, maybe quartz heard, chiefly chalcedony, alternating with microgranular quartz.
Always when I go hunting for Agate I use the guide-stones to see if the day is worthwhile...
If there is no Jasper. there is probably no Agate.
This is my favorite piece of jasper...!! it is called Poppy-Jasper...
And it is very rare to find in the Netherlands.
Most agates found in my region are small, maybe 20 to 40 mm, but there are bigger ones...
Here is beauty....!
Raw, as I found it and after the works.... this one did take 10 hours to Finnish...
Agate is characterized by its fineness of grain and variety of colors. from yellow to red to purple and blue...
Although agates may be found in various kinds of host rock,
they are classically associated with volcanic rocks and can be common in certain metamorphic rocks.
I go rock hunting as much as I possibly can.
Agates are very rare in the Netherlands since the country has no agates of its own. but there are a lot of sand-quarries in my area, the agates are located on a depth of say 12-35 meters.... in huge sandbanks...!!
they suck up the sand and do not use the bigger stones... maybe they make split out of it... so if i do not find them in the huge piles of rock... they are forever gone.!!
Dutch agates were washed down eons ago by:
The Rhine River and its tributaries like the Mosel, the Nahe, and the Saar.
The river Niers, Its wellspring is near Erkelenz, south of Mönchengladbach, in North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany).
it is now a small river, but it was huge at one point in history...
and the Niers is the big supplier of the Agates I hunt for, near the river Rhine there is also a lot to find.
Some agates show characteristics that are typical for the Saar/Nahe region in Germany.
Idar-Oberstein is the most famous city in that region and famous for the agates found there.
they came rolling down... and now mine to find...
For me, the most beautiful type of agate is the so-called 'pseudomorphic agates'.
This is a type of agate where the original minerals are replaced by agate.
But it would be better to not even use specific terms when you simply don't know what the inclusions are.
Call them by more truly descriptive terms: "Sprays" and "pincushions" and "reticulated frameworks."
I have several sorts of agates and jaspers from Germany and the Netherlands and other parts of the world,
But there it is. tha magic....!!
if you find them yourself the feeling is way different then if you buy one in a shop...! and if you can fill a house with these beauties....!!! it is a treasure.....