A stone with a story
In his post about precious stones, @homeartpictures mentions an amethyst vein under his home village. This made me a bit jealous, as I live in a region that is not very interesting geologically when you go looking for pretty stones.
The area here in Twente, The Netherlands is mainly sand, peat, and some river clay on top of a layer of ground boulder clay that was deposited in the last Ice Age; most of the stones and rocks you find were brought here by the glaciers 20000 years ago. Some later reached the surface, like this one:
Olympus Stylus 1s, 42mm, ISO100, f8, 2s, artificial background
It's about 4cm (1.6") across, it's mainly quartz, and I like to call it "almost an agate".
It has been quite a journey for this little stone: it probably comes from somewhere in Scandinavia, and the ice pushed it to The Netherlands 20000 years ago, where it sat in the layer of boulder clay. After the Ice Age, sand and peat covered the boulder clay, and vegetation grew on top of that.
The vegetation was later removed when the land was cultivated (pasture now), and water and frost worked the stone upwards into the top soil. A few days ago, a friendly mole deposited it on top of a molehill, where I found it yesterday.
That would qualify as an agate
Maybe I should start digging in my backyard...I might find some special stone too :)
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wow. amazing
Good work, mole! That frost action is amazing! When I lived in Michigan, I had a big garden and would double-dig every year -- two spades deep -- and take out every big stone. And every year, without fail, I would find new stones, bigger than my head. Where did they come from? Some were easy to identify as coming from way up north in Canada, because of the uniqueness of the rock. But where they came from, underground, year after year, still amazes me. There had to be an endless supply, down deep! I'm glad the mole helped you out, to appreciate your glacial remnant rock without you having to dig! And your geology is probably better for easy gardening! ; )
Yes, the rocks keep popping up. Still, they're all imports 8-). We don't have rocks of our own here in Twente, but a bit further to the South there is a limestone quarry where fossils and some minerals are found in the muschelkalk. I wonder if they will let me search there ...
Well, I guess you have to take what rocks you can get -- imports and all! That's neat about having a nearby quarry with fossil and minerals! Here's to successful prospecting! : )
nice
Toller Stein, ich würde auch auf Achat tippen.
Ich nehm den post mal mit an meine Wand. Und folgen werde ich dir auch mal :)
Danke!
good.... Achat?
Sieht fast so aus, bin aber nicht sicher.
ich denke schon....aber viel Quarz mit drin.... bei uns im Dorf sind die meist ohne Quarz