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 Post subject: Beads with a weird name?
PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 1:31 am 
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Hi guys!!
My aunt has these strings, she bought them in Tucson a couple of years ago. They have a ticket saying "Burn Jade" but the name brings me to a dead end. I have tried looking for burned jade or burnt jade but nothing... Any help is appreciated, I love the energy of the stones and I want to find more about them. Thanks for reading me!! :D

https://ibb.co/dKc2nG
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 Post subject: Re: Beads with a weird name?
PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:09 pm 
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These beads have been crackle quenched, a process where the beads are heated and dropped in water. Perhaps this is why they're 'burnt'. These cracks allow dye to enter the stone for a nice contrasty look. This is also done on transparent stones with the intention of allowing deeper dye penetration. I would guess these are milky quartz, and the jade name is just thrown in the mix to make them sound more exciting.

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 Post subject: Re: Beads with a weird name?
PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 10:15 pm 
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Stephen Challener wrote:
These beads have been crackle quenched, a process where the beads are heated and dropped in water. Perhaps this is why they're 'burnt'. These cracks allow dye to enter the stone for a nice contrasty look. This is also done on transparent stones with the intention of allowing deeper dye penetration. I would guess these are milky quartz, and the jade name is just thrown in the mix to make them sound more exciting.

I tought it was an agate by looking at the color, but the milky quartz sounds interesting :D


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 Post subject: Re: Beads with a weird name?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 12:18 am 
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Agate is usually banded, by definition:

Your beads are not. :wink:

I think some could be chalcedony as well. Hard to say with eyes alone.


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 Post subject: Re: Beads with a weird name?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 12:21 am 
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Some of them could be chalcedony or very subtly banded grey agate (where the banding is mostly seen in different levels of translucency and can be difficult to see on the wrong orientation), but most of them have a very quartz-looking texture.

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 Post subject: Re: Beads with a weird name?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 1:13 am 
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Stephen Challener wrote:
Some of them could be chalcedony or very subtly banded grey agate (where the banding is mostly seen in different levels of translucency and can be difficult to see on the wrong orientation), but most of them have a very quartz-looking texture.

Thanks!!!!


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 Post subject: Re: Beads with a weird name?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 6:05 pm 
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fortification agates are banded. But there are a lot of agates (like Montana Moss agate, Sweetwater agate, Graveyard Plume, etc.) that aren't.
Graveyard plume (Western Idaho): Image
Sweetwater agate: (Sweetwater, Wyoming) Image
Montana Moss agate (Eastern Montana) Image


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 Post subject: Re: Beads with a weird name?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 6:34 pm 
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OK, you are correct.... there are several varieties of chalcedony termed agate when they don't meet the actual definition.


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 Post subject: Re: Beads with a weird name?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 8:04 pm 
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It depends on who you're talking to. Rockhounds tend to call most any kind of translucent chalcedony "agate". But according to one source, minerals.net,

"Dendritic Agate
- Translucent Chalcedony with tree-like or fern-like inclusions. Dendritic Agate is technically not a true Agate, as it lacks the banding patterns exhibited in Agates."

Point to Barbra. :?


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 Post subject: Re: Beads with a weird name?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 09, 2018 9:55 pm 
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Two out of three of those do show banding. In the case of plumey agates it can be obscured, or in the case of montana agates it is just very fine and subtle but always present. The sweetwater may or may not, I don't remember.

Cryptocrystalline quartz nomenclatire is messy and every simple definition seems to invite exceptions. These are traditional trade terms, after all, rather than hard scientific designations. Even banding vs no banding is a continuum. Some locales like the limb cast agates from Texas Springs seem to show a continuum, with some showing obvious banding, some showing very faint subtle banding and some apparently showing none at all.

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 Post subject: Re: Beads with a weird name?
PostPosted: Wed Jan 10, 2018 2:18 pm 
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This is a circular argument :lol: . Folks will call what ever they want, whatever they want to call it.

When I was a student, I was taught agate is banded chalcedony.

Your point that some specimens of dendritic and plumbed "agate" are lightly banded would identify them as an agate within my prehistoric definition, n'est pas?.


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