The Agate Mystery: Why We Can't Synthesize This Common Gem
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- Опубліковано 16 чер 2022
- If you know where to look, agates aren't particularly hard to find, and people have been examining them for thousands of years - but yet, they're one of the only major gemstones scientists can't synthesize in the lab. Here's the story.
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Key Sources about agates in the Lake Superior region, quartz, moganite, and other topics in this video:
Correspondence with Dr. Peter Heaney, May 2022
pubs.geoscienceworld.org/eurj...
www.mdpi.com/books/pdfview/bo...
pennstateoffice365-my.sharepo...
www.rockngem.com/sharing-agat...
Image Links:
Lake Superior Agates:
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Agates in General:
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Quartz and Sub-Types:
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...
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#agates #lakesuperior
I have a Geology degree from McMaster University circa 2000. 20+ years later I figured out the majority of my field work up there was looking for gold or other ore deposits. It's funny to see my ex-professors names on mining claims (in the current 2022 GIS shapefiles no less). The north shore of Superior is one of the most beautiful places in the world. Thanks for a great and honest video!
It must be so cool to think that the people who taught you over two decades ago are making history in the field! I hope to look back on my professors and career with that much respect for my education. It’s so expensive so it feels nice to know it’s not for nothing. 😂
@@emilyhamilton726 I think you may have missed the point/subtext of my comment. We were never told that we were doing free prospecting. Cool is not a word I would use in this situation.
@@withershin my bad! I misunderstood lol
@@emilyhamilton726 lol no worries. You've got it harder than me likely. I only paid like $5K per year in my day.
@@withershin wow!!! That’s insane!! That’s barely one semester for me 😭😂
my interest in geology honestly begins and ends at "oooh pretty rock" but your delivery held my attention and made me curious about things I hadn't thought to wonder about. Very high quality
My brother (who lives in coastal Oregon) is an absolute agate hound. He has easily collected over a thousand pounds of various agates from the shore and riverbeds over the years. Several of his specimens are easily 20 lbs. and over a foot across. (His back yard looks like an agate convention). I’d love to watch him set loose on the shore of Lake Michigan - but then there’d be none left. I’m definitely going to share this video with him for the science.
Oregonian here! They can also be found all along the Willamette River. Just gotta find a rocky shore
He wouldn't find a lot along the shores of Lake Michigan, he'd wanna go further north.
@@tannersmith7378 Good to know. I believe we found some Petosky stones up north when I was younger.
There are limits to how much one can legally take from areas
At a over a thousand pounds he might want to leave some for others 😅
@@Hashdollars we’re talking over a 10 year period my friend, almost completely from multi-hour, and sometimes full day treks up-river and along streams around Oregon. Public beaches in Oregon (and many other states) have signs posted no agate collecting and he’s an advocate of that. He usually never runs into anyone else rock collecting where he is willing to go. (Which also makes his older brother nervous). You usually don’t find large agates lying in the open. Most are buried. He knows and follows the laws concerning rock collecting and where he can do it or he wouldn’t be doing it this long. If you’re willing to go where he goes and get as muddy as he does, you’ll find yours. There are millions of tons of chalcedony, including various types of agates around this planet available for the willing. (FYI- I’m NOT one of the willing, lol!) 👍 Have a good week.
I collect minerals and, while I have some fairly valuable samples, one of my favorites is an enhydro agate. There's a pocket of water trapped inside with an air bubble so it sloshes a bit. One face was ground and polished so you can see it. The water in it is very possibly over 100 million years old.
It’s rare when I can watch a video with so much information and follow to the end without becoming lost. You know your subject so well and your enthusiasm gets my attention. The qualities of a good teacher. Great job.
As an amateur rock hound, this is really interesting to me. I've found so many random pretty rocks and crystals while wandering aimlessly in the wilderness and never knew how they formed
This video has basically doubled my knowledge of agates. Thanks again!
It's always so good to hear!
There's a special place in my heart for people that can be this excited about rocks, critters, trains and the like. 🧡
Michigan is home to another type of "agate" that is man made and takes considerably less time to produce. The Detroit agate, also known as Fordite, is layers of paint that has collected on the dollies that carry car bodies through the painting process. Eventually they get cleaned off, but before they do tons of layers build up and get baked to make a really hard stone like substance. People cut this to show the layers and make some really cool jewelry. The really old specimens can fetch sizable sums.
If you want to see some serious Lake Superior agates, and get a glimpse into the world of hardcore agate collectors, I highly recommend getting “The Lake Superior Agate” by Scott Wolter. It is a cool little book. Love your videos, keep up the great work!
Adding to my list of to reads
another idea - take a drive up the North Shore - between Duluth and the Canadian border the whole stretch has agates all over the place in all conditions from fragments to whole stones. So many that we don't even bother to take _any_ most of the time.
Love the way you present, you've put a smile on my face and passed on knowledge that I didn't know! Thanks, Tammi
Thanks, Tammi! I appreciate that. 🙂
@@AlexisDahl I can't stand it. Tone it down. The millennials are not paying attention anyway to lay off the distraction.
@@Failure_Is_An_Option What are you talking about? What do millennials got to do with this?
I actually really enjoyed the video.
Every time I learn something new about agates it's always really cool! And I think it's fun to note that I grew up around Lake Superior on a street called Agate. I'm also not very good at finding those little gems on the beach but every once in a while I'll find a little itty bitty one and It's always super exciting.
Agate formation is such a fascinating topic. I think Keith and Padden were on the right track. They were materials scientists at Bell Labs back in the 1960s, and published a series of 3 articles on spherulitic crystallization. But those articles and the book you read are very technical works. The best book on agates for the average rockhound is the one by Pabian and others “Agates Treasures of the Earth. It goes into all the basics, and then goes on a worldwide tour of major agate localities, complete with lots of awesome color photos.
I truly respect a scientist that can say that they don't understand how things happen.
Thank you, lovely lady, for admitting to the fact that we don't always get it right.
Wow! It's really cool that with as much as we know in geology, there's always more to learn. Thanks Alexis!
My pleasure! Also, right? There are always going to be new questions, for better or worse. 🙂
Right. Great video. I learned a ton. I collect and cut rocks and do lapidary and silversmithing arts. The graph of what an agate is was definitely screen grabbed by me. Plus she has a great personality. (:
I do enjoy the patterns of agate. Chalcedony (which agate is a variety of) also includes bloodstone (not to be confused with hematite/haematite, also called blood stone, named because it produces a blood red colour when being cut hema/haema, meaning blood, tite, the suffix for stones, literally "blood stone").
I just want to point out that at least on the Minnesota shoreline, most of the public land along the lake is in unit designations where keeping any found rocks is illegal (State Parks or Scientific and Natural Areas), so while you may find them there, if you want to take one home you either need to find it on private land or buy it in a gift shop.
It’s pretty much impossible to find one on any public shores anyways, they are all picked clean
or break the law
@@users4007 Can confirm! Have lived in Minnesota for nearly 18 years and visit Lake Superior fairly regularly. Nobody in my family has ever found an agate, the beaches are *very* much picked clean. There’s other cool rocks though! Agate beach is always fun to go to and search for rocks.
Exactly, you should never take souvenirs from the beach. Hastens land erosion and takes away from other people ability to enjoy.
I love agates... there's tons of (cheap) gemstones that science just won't be able to replicate for now, like labradorite, moonstone, sunstone, jasper, malachite, and the list goes on
Good examples of these rocks you mentions are not cheap at all
From a fellow Michigander. Really love your channel. Thank you. I'm in NC now but your videos certainly keeps my life in MI remembered warmly. Its like rehearsal of sorts. Thank you.
Agates can teach us a lot. Each band is a small piece of the timeline, it can tell us a lot about what was going on in the area at the time of the band forming.
That dopamine hit is real. Even agates aside. Just finding something pleasing to your eye will catch you a little buzz. Great video! Thank you!
Wow! I had no idea! Agate is like a Gateway rock for collectors and one of the first I ever held or learned about. There is a lot of agate in Tennessee and I have found a lot of it. I have never heard of Moganite!
Ok, you have me hooked, when is your next episode?
There are two types of silica, quartz and moganite. They twist light in the opposite direction. Quartz is optical fast and moganite is optical slow. The chunk of Heaney moganite found on a volcanic flank of Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain off the coast of Morocco is a chalcedony a granular silica of nearly pure moganite, which is exceptionally rare. Agates are not cherts, they are not granular quartz, they are structured fibrous quartz and quartz crystals. Crystal quartz is not chalcedony. Because the quartz crystals are microscopic does not mean they are not quartz crystals, they are just small. An agate as a chalcedony is 1800's science in an age without modern technology for their study.
Fellow Tennessean rock hounder here ! We do have a lot of agate here. I’ve just started my journey so for sure still learning.
@@jennifertalley49 Hey there! Yes! It is so pretty too! Good luck to you in your search for the most awesome collection!
Where did you find it at? I live in NC in Appalachia... everything is quartz and red mud... so where would you find the Agates?
@@EC-dz4bqSouthern Middle Tennessee area has a lot of agate.
I loved that you clearly say that you can not and do not know the or have the answers to the questions
That intellectual honesty got me to subscribe
Love your videos. They're a combo of geology, history, and geography wrapped up in an entertaining presentation.
I found another UA-cam sample that really informs about a subject that interests me. How about an episode on thunder eggs..
I'm really glad I found this channel. Lifelong Michigander here and I love getting the history and science of the greatest state in the country.
Remember, no matter which fields of science there are, there will always be more to learn and we will be inevitably wrong on a large portion of it.
Very interesting! I've spent many days of my youth walking the beaches near Whitefish Point looking for agates. They're not easy to find even if they aren't that scarce.
Thanks for making this, Alexis! We’ve found a few ‘ugly’ agates, but never knew all that much about how they formed. The more you know 😃 Hopefully you’ll find one soon!
I live in Thunder Bay, on Lake Superior. There's a bed of limestone that has also been replaced by the same fluids that filled the vesicles in the basalts. It's the only known Lake Superior Seam Agate.
Ur excitement and passion is a beautiful amazing trait as hard to find as agates are hard to synthetically grow
I love your topics and the way you present. You have a brilliant quirky mind!
Awesome content :) Full of passion, genuine intrigue and knowledge! Keep up the great work!
As a new viewer i find i am responding well to your enthusiasm and sense of humor. This is also a really interesting question to make a video on
Never hear anything like it ... very nice knowledgeable talk about agate in away that give us questions more than answers and made us think ..
Thank you for make me think
I love how enthusiastic you are. 😀
You are so well-spoken and your videos are so interesting hope you grow!!!
Thanks, Ania! I appreciate the well-wishes! 🙂
Brilliant job once again. I enjoyed the video and learned some science stuff. 😁
I'm definitely sharing this with our resident agate fanatic and sharing on FB.
Agates are my favorite to polish. Depending on the structure, changes the polish. Love it
Super cool! I've always loved agate. Never really dove into what they were though... but it's so exciting to learn they're made from my old friend quartz!!!
Ha ha, I was thiiis close to including a photo of a Herkimer Diamond in the little grid of quartz types! 🙂
I love your passion and enthusiasm!
Thank you, Alexis! Very well done.
Thanks, George!
I love your enthusiasm!! and thanks for the info i never new this
when I was a kid ( 70s) we used to walk the dirt roads in MN cuz ... what else ya gonna do in MN, AGATES EVERYWHERE ! great video.
Great video! I had no idea agate actually looks like that in the wild! I thought they had to be polished! That is incredible that they can just be.... picked up along a beach
THE INTRO WAS LITERALLY ME WHENEVER I GET ROCKS, I ALWAYS HAVE A HUGE SMILE ON MY FACE
Love the rock energy here. Love the painting of the collage to! Ah I love this thank you!
I found and cut some thunder eggs with these bands and jasper in the centre in odd star shapes just as interesting love them since young age now I have ticked the bucket list off
So much information. Awesome! :D Thanks for sharing your passion.
I love the beautiful three-dimensional layering found in agates. I favor Fire Opals, too. Busy little rocks...
Fantastic video's... you are very engaging to watch and your passion for the subject just pulls me in to want to learn more... Good job. Sending love from SE corner of the mitten...
Great video! We found a few good agates at, oddly enough, Agate Beach in Copper Harbor a few years ago. :)
So interesting-thank you for this!
Beautiful, entertaining, and informative... Thank you ... Great work ... 👍👍👍
I love that agate is still in natures kitchen... very cool
I have buckets full of lake superior agates. You can find them all over around here, from the beech, to the woods.
I started finding these in gravel at my elementary school & at many places that had gravel driveways. Kinda like finding 4 leaf clovers in different fields of which I have found at least a couple of thousand.
Okay, so rocks and such is not really my bag man, however I must say. I really enjoyed watching your video here. Your presentation and excitement are amazing.
Very well put together video. I dig it. Thanks for the info and I look forward to seeing more of your content. Keep on being awesome!
I used agates for 30 years. I like them as much as you do. You already know how they form. You just need to imagine the time factor in the laying down of the layers of silcion dioxide that crystlezed into the billions of quartz crystles that make up the solid agete layer. And as time went by and different minerals disolved with the silica
and built up in the cavity you get the result of banded agate.... It took a long time for sure. I liked your video a lot. Good job.
New to the channel. Been loving it. I have been trying lately to show my young daughters a lot of female youtubers. It's been really fun to watch your channel and have them get excited about it too.
Another awesome vid!!
It's cool to see my state in these videos. I feel like Michigan kinda blends into the background sometimes.
Obsessed with these rocks!
Thank you! Very interesting. I had no idea! I thought there were just translucent smooth rocks!
Wow you are amazing! Instant subscribe!
Great explanation, cool stuff
This was magnificent!!!!!! ❤️
I remember when this was brought up - and i spoke to my professor about this (at this point I had been a student of geology and collector minerals for 30 years...) and IMHO, which he couldnt dispute, cozya know, they dont really know, if you know anything about crystalisation of melts, (phase diagrams of silica minerals in a magma melt) where higher temp minerals settle out and fall to the base of a magma chamber, leaving the mix richer as a percentage of other ions and minerals develop accordingly, OR the phase diagrams of feldspars (those triangles that mess with students heads of Na, K, and Ca, at all 3 points and the various types of feldspars), THEN the settling out of the bands makes a bit more sense. If the outer layers have impurities that make them crystalise out at higher temps, then they will crystalise first, then that gradual process create bands increasing inwards. Imagine the inside of an agate as a mix of fluid of many different ions, then the crystalisation order and process will be different for each type...or at least enough to create nuanced colours and layers. Given the out side of the agate chambers are either going to be hotter OR colder than the inside of the chamber, the different temp required for the fractal crystalisation will trigger accessory ions to form the different bands. AM I making sense...? Because what we do know, is that all the diff forms of agates and qtz, esp ones used in jewelery, whether its chalcedony, crysophrase, carnelian, onyx etc, they all have diff hardness, ionic configurations, and qualities, therefore a reflection of the diff temps and environments they crystalise out as. Just a hypothesis...
Great video! Thank you
your enthusiasm and bubbly persona is refreshing in today's world filled with bad politicians and Instagram buffoons. I also learned something which is my favorite.....thanks 👍
Thank you this is amazing
You need to get out west. In southern Cali and Arizona you can pick them off the desert floor along with lots of other gemstones and there are lots of landscapes to paint too. Have you watched Michigan rocks on here? lots of good stuff to see. Wish I had 1/10th your energy. Thanks
When I was at University we had a go at making zeolites and ~ ringed agate with variable rock and fluid chemistries in a melt and the cooling process we got some stuff that looked like ringed agate under a microscope but it was very thin and elements in fluids we introduced in the cooling were towards the centre as were any aluminosilicate fibres.
If they do grow over a longish time they should hold a record of the fluids circulating as the area cooled. That would be good for mineral exploration.
The curiosity of a child with the expressiveness of a truly enthusiastic educator...we should all be so lucky!👍👍
Science does know the several ways agates are made. They can be made, but they are not cost-effective. Your enthusiasm is refreshing, and your agates are beautiful.
Great video on a potentially murky subject. Well done. I’v been Rockhounding in the west for a few years and continue to be amazed what nature can do. Having only passed through the Great Lakes area A few times never considered it much of a volcanic area. Were the agate’s grown local or transported in on ice age glaciers from up north?
Keep up the good work.
Here in Newport, Oregon we are near Agate Beach. Sadly, the name of the beach encouraged so many agate-hunters out here that they had to close the place for a while. People would drive dump trucks down there at night, scoop up massive collections of rocks, then haul them off to sort, then re-sell them for a few bucks each to tourists. It's so bad now, that there are very few agates except when a major, MAJOR storm causes everything to get sifted a bit. Then the hunters come back, littering and fighting.
it never ceases to amaze me how such a small portion of the population ruins everything for everyone else
I think I have a somewhat large one of these that was ground and polished into the shape of an egg. Pretty cool looking. I hope I can find it again.
Agates are also found in hydrothermal vein systems, linked to ore mineralization such as silver and gold, and so has been extensively studied. There are many mineral markers for temperature of formation used in their study showing temps of 200C and higher.
My rockhounding days ended when I moved to Florida as a teen, we just have sand and crushed shells. I did buy some in stores.
Fascinating. 😮
Wow, what a cool video Alexis.
Just subscribed and hoped to see more first rate videos from you.
GD
The beach I set net (commercially for salmon) in Alaska was full of agates. I found a coffee can full every summer strolling along the beach.
I've always been attracted to quarts and agates as well. The whole spectrum of agates is amazing.
From 6 years to now 61 I'm still amazed by the wonders of agates.
Geology is fascinating. There's just so many possibilities. Most of my life I hardly cared about science as a whole, let alone geology. Something happened in my early 20's though and since then I feel like there isn't enough time in the day to absorb everything I'd like to. Who woulda thought roads were cool? The more I learned the more I appreciated things.
The nearby rivers I fished for years went from gross city rivers to these incredibly beautiful stretches carved out by glacial melt waters. The ponds local to me went from over populated sad excuses for nature preserves to gorgeous kettle ponds created by more glacial ice. Seems really easy to skate through life and not admire the things you're surrounded by daily.
I found Moganite in Florida when I was a boy. I still have one large piece that weighs about 10lbs. It's mortared into a chimney now though.
I live on the coast of lake erie. Ive always wondered about the geology in this area. If the lake was larger at one time, or could be, and if cities like Lorain, Ohio would be underwater. Places like North Ridgeville suggest a ridge formation. There are many parks in this area (Cleveland Metro Parks) with exposed rock, waterfalls, and history.
Fascinating! So cool
Well we accidently grew layered silica similar to agate at a factory that produced large hydrothermal quartz crystals for laser optics and electronics. What happened was a tiny leak causing pressure changes in the reactor causing the crystals to grow around bits of the source material rather than as glitzy crystals. It made agaite like banding that was obvious under a polarized light microscope. It was not colored though, just clear and white. What likely happens for natural agate is changes of preassures and temperatures cause the water to go in and out of the supercritical state with a high amount of silica to water. 🤓
Interestingly it's been said that bugs cannot become trapped inside an agate due to how they're believed to be formed, the only 2 gemstones found with bugs in them are amber and opal, yet Im holding an agate right now with at least 3 bugs trapped in it. I've checked extensively online for any information on this and have found absolutely nothing, even talking to geologists at the local colleges say if it's true I may have the only agate specimen ever found with bugs fossilized in it.
I'm still searching for any info though all I find is information on common inclusions like sand and no bugs.
It has become my treasured gemstone, palm sized, mostly white with a light blue tint and banding on the surface that looks like the Eye of Ra.
- as a former (Base) Michigander, I must say, You are my Fav. for Representative.
Alexis, you're back! We missed the most beautiful researcher on the planet.😁
I just collected tons of fire agate in Arizona.. its so beautiful and mesmerizing.. I haven't figured out what to do with all of it yet tho😅
Out here in Washington State we have a beautiful place called Agate Beach.
Agates, of course, but also the odd geode!
The Olympic peninsula is a partly volcanic, partly up-lift mountain range the juts up from the ocean floor.
Many mistake it as part of the continental US.
Great video!
Agate Trash is a hilariously specific yet brutal self diss good job
Why don't we know? cuz there are simply too many layers to it! ;)
I have seen some agates which contain air pockets, so the slow buildup of layers must occur at least some of the time. But that doesn’t rule out “instant” agates.
there are many ways to tell its a new year for me one of them is that one nugget of gold the algorythm serves me per year. i didnt know i needed someone to tell me about great lakes regional science excitedly but i definitly did 😅
Thanks can you do a vid on natural Zircon, I believe the oldest of all gemstones. I fossicked in WA and found a corker, about 15mm after faceting. Its a truely beautiful stone and I've been asked by jewellers as to where I got it! I set it in 18ct yellow gold with an expensive Italian chain. Anyway I'm sure you could make an awesome video, you have great personality...matches the gems. Take care