Blue Agate from Malawi

Blue Agate from Malawi

Size:  67 x 46 x 52 mm

Weight:  142 gram

Location:  Mulanje District in Malawi

Description:  Palm size blue agate with geode filled with lustrous quartz crystals.  In fact, there is another small geode on the back of the piece. These chalcedony veins are formed by hydrothermal deposition within large cracks in rock.

Silicon Dioxide, also known as Quartz, is the second most abundant mineral in the Earth's crust. Quartz crystals generally grow in silica-rich, hot watery solutions called hydrothermal environments, at temperatures between 100C and 450C, and usually under very high pressure. Quartz veins are formed when open fissures are filled with hot water during the closing stages of mountains forming, and can be hundreds of millions of years old.

Agate is a variety of microcrystalline quartz (chalcedony) that displays translucence and in some cases banding. Agate primarily forms when silica-rich fluids fill pockets within rock and/or fossils, resulting in deposition of the silica along the walls of the rock. This process can result in banding patterns as the composition and impurities of the fluids change over time. These banding patterns can either form as flat layers or rounded layers, depending on the surfaces available for deposition.

Learn more about the healing properties of Blue Agate  here.

All photographs are taken in a light studio so colours may vary from the actual piece.  We do try and make the images as accurate as possible.