Stones: Blue Agate

We finally publish again in our blog after more than a month.

As we promised, we are going to check out closer all the stones varieties that you can find in our stores, and in this publication we will talk about Blue Agate in particular.
Blue Agate, classified as a semiprecious stone, is a quartz sub-variety and appears with concentric strips which alternate blue and white colours. Its beauty and attraction depend on the blue colour intensity and abundance. It is born in volcanic rocks when there are hot silica filtrations. The various filtrations, that can have different silica concentration, form the different colour layers. When filtrations are very slow, in the stone’s central part very evident microcrystals can be formed, meanwhile if they are very fast, that crystals will be microscopic.

On market, both in jewelry sector and in collecting, there are also multiple varieties of treated Blue Agates. What does it mean? It means agates are impregnated with a solution that pierce into microcrystals, to a greater or lesser extent, depending on their porosity. In this way, the agate’s blue colour can be intensified. To recognize natural Blue Agates from the treated ones, you must observe blue colouration’s clarity and uniformity, because both are better defined in natural stones.

Nowadays, specially Blue Agate but also other agate varieties, are particularly appreciated in China and in India due to the importance and influence in these countries of Buddhism and Feng Shui into household architecture.
In The West it was a very high-valued stone during the Renaissance, in this period a lot of different kind of cameos with incredible beauty were be produced.

The areas around the world with a larger extraction of Blue Agate are Brazil in Minas Gerais’ zone, Uruguay in Artigas’ department, China in Tibet, Mexico in Chihuahua’s state, and Democratic Republic of the Congo, too.

With this we have finished for now, we hope you found interesting these little explanations about Blue Agates and we have thought make the same with the huge variety of stones in the world for our next articles.

You can also take a look to how we transform these charming stones into more beautiful jewels in our website or by our social media.

From El Coral we thank you for your attention and we wait you on our next publications.