I must be honest: there is way too much snow on the beach to agate hunt. However, I know that you rockhounds still want to look at pictures of agates. Thus, I have scanned in a couple of terrific Lake Superior agates for your enjoyment.
The first is one that I purchased while in New Mexico a couple of years ago. I received a call from a friend saying that an acquaintance had a garbage can full of rocks left over from her dad’s rock shop, which used to be located in northern Minnesota. It actually turned out to be nearly a dozen garbage cans – all of which had sat untouched for 20 years. Many of the cans had other non-agate rocks. Even those with agates, had other material. It took me all day to go through those specimens. The agate pictured below is one that I retrieved and purchased. I call it my Champaign Agate because the shadow has bubble-like structure to it. You cannot depict this shadow effect in a digital image, but you can see the ghosted like contrast of the shadow on the right side of the agate in the detailed picture below. The rock shop owner cut, but did not polish this specimen.
The next agate is one that I have for sale. It is an interesting tube agate. The detailed picture shows cross sections of some of the tubes. On the other end of the specimen (not pictured) there are several other tubes clearly visible through the translucent chalcedony. Due to the roundness of this section of the agate, the scan didn’t come out so I can’t include this view (sorry). Although the rest of the banding is not as well defined, the tubes make this an interesting specimen.
