FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Kelly Jean]

I am going to start off with some Lake Superior Agates that are both from Michigan and Minnesota:

[alfredo]

I do enjoy seeing these agates in their natural condition! Too many agates end up being sliced and polished, or I suppose some of them just don't look like anything interesting until they're sliced and polished.

[SteveB]

I thought I was the only one. I have a bunch of similar agates I found near Ipswich, Queensland, Australia. Similarly rounded, possibly by water at some point I guess Many of mine were surface finds in an exposed location and polished to a shine i think from wind/dirt. So they have the same natural agate patterns already well presented. Some would come up nice in a tumbler, but I’ve never wanted to do that since many have cracks and might split plus tumbling removes so much material from the stones. The site also has heaps of petrified wood with similar natural polishing of details and no rounding. So i guess the agates formed and had some life in running water to round them, before ending up with the petrified wood. I always wondered about agates and petrified wood as I’ve heard of other finding both together, if they are formed together in location.

Anyway, thanks for those pics, they are very nice, did you find a whole range of sizes at the location like mine were?

[Bob Morgan]

They are in abundance in Louisiana and are the state stone. They were brought down the Mississippi River and polished in the process.
The gravel companies in the Eastern parishes leave piles of oversize gravel from which many can be found. Walking along a gravel road on a levee in Northern Mississippi, they were there.
They are not large and more of a curiosity, certainly not to be enhanced by cutting. I've been told that those that are blue have been naturally exposed to light making a color change from red.