In modern times, we all know agates as jewelry in our life, but few know how they are formed. In fact, agates are enormously complicated and knowing the information about how they are formed is necessary. Now the following part will offer you the detail introduction.
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How are agates formed
2010-08-05 09:20:27
The only thing we know about agates is maybe that they are semiprecious gemstones in the chalcedony category of minerals, and made from different fibrous bands of colors. But about its formation we common people are not familiar with, here I will give you an introduction.
Agates start with a cavity, a void in the rock; they are formed in approximately 90 percent quartz, and 10 percent moganite. But it said that there is another mineral that has the same chemical composition, which is moganite, it has a different structure. It can crystallize into both diamond and graphite just like carbon. But when you examine an agate with a light microscope, you can find another composition that is the fibrous crystals. They are like spokes on a bicycle wheel, nucleating on the wall. Onto the walls is the silicate, they can polymerize under the serve of the oxygen. Soon, though, the polymers get depleted from the solution, leaving isolated silicon units. You can crystallize perfect quartz crystals without moganite from these. Between the crystal fibers are channels that work by capillary action to pull water into the center of the hole in the rock. "If you have a continuous supply of water feeding silica to the system," Heaney says, "then when the concentration gets higher, the silica will begin to polymerize again and it will begin to crystallize rapidly again.
Here is the formation of the agate; maybe through this article you can learn something. Hope after this guide you are now familiar with it.
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