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Amber

  • #22
I want a good peice of watermellon tourmoline... Now I'm getting hungry--must go back to Jim Scott's icecream topic!
 
  • #23
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Gawd_oOo @ April 03 2005,10:25)]Is this one a fake? Or is it just a very clear piece of amber.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws....77&rd=1
It's not fake, but this is Columbian copal--not true polymerized resin. It is many years younger than Dominican amber that PAK is looking for--it probably is only thousands of years old, not millions. In addition, it is softer than other amber which is already really soft. One test of true amber is using alcohol which will not affect it. Copal on the other hand turns gummy.

Good research on finding that E-Bay piece!!
 
  • #24
oh my... since no one has said it yet...

"Where is my drill and needle? needs to get me some DNA!"

jk...

anyone know a good source of amber for jewlery? I have been trying to find some amber pieces made with gold, but they seem to be very rare, so I decided I would have some custom made. (My wife only wears gold)
 
  • #25
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]PAK's quartz enhydro is a pretty cool inclusion, not an enhydro.
aah i knew it, there couldnt be a enhydro in quartz!
 
  • #26
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Finch @ April 04 2005,2:27)]
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]PAK's quartz enhydro is a pretty cool inclusion, not an enhydro.
 aah i knew it, there couldnt be a enhydro in quartz!
Good article on enhydros herenorthere, and good call on that finch. I had no idea that enhydro was so specific, and it is common for amber purveyors to say that anything with airbubbles is an 'enhydro specimen'.

Here is a cool link to an amber piece that I bid on and lost. Methane gas bubbles (CP luvers fav) exuding from an insect abdomen trapped in amber forever. Check it out!!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6516929065
 
  • #27
Thanks for the info, Bruce.
smile.gif
I did know they are simply inclusions of air/gas, fluid and/or carbon. But I've never heard them referred to as anything but enhydros. There are a lot of mineral dealers selling them as such. Probably because the term has become popular and is reconizable.

I love inclusions...particularly in quartz. Its like a little captured world of "stuff".
biggrin.gif


You are only getting half the experience using just your eyes to look at rocks and minerals. Break out a loupe or microscope and you'll reeeeaally see what its all about. Its quite fascinating. Its also fun to take a piece of included quartz and go on an "enhydro" search. Sorry...but enhydro is easier to type than "water, carbon or gas filled inclusion." lol

I have one that has a very large bubble in a long narrow chamber filled with carbon. As you tilt it, the bubble moves back and forth like a silver hot dog and squishes the carbon material all around. Its in my pocket.
smile.gif
 
  • #28
the best place to look for true enhydros is probably sedimentary rock. I think chemichal sedimentary rocks have them mosy abundantly. Igneous and metamorphic rock (of wich quartz is)... the material inside would prabably be destroyed by heat and pressure, or just heat. I coulnt think of how a enhydro could have penetrayed a igneous rock like quarts, but i actually tought u were referning to a similar material like Halite, wich is sedimentary.
 
  • #29
Those nice quartz crystals people collect form in the range of 450F, so aren't from outrageously high temperatures. It's little more than pie baking temperature. But the pressure has to be high enough to keep water from boiling.
 
  • #30
right, but remember that the granitic rock from wich quartz forms is initily a magma intrusion deep underground that subsequently cools and is exposed by erosion. the slow cooling process under witch they formmeans any matter of orgainc origin ould have to survive the initial intrution and penetrate the cooling rock. and im reffering specificly to true enhydros not inclusions of air/gas, fluid and/or carbon.
 
  • #31
But the "crystals' people get aren't granitic. They're hydrothermal. Quartz doesn't get to express itself in granites. There's petroleum in some of New York's Herkimer Diamonds, which are actually quartz.
 
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