Dwarves Earth Treasures: Apach Agate from Chihuahua Province, Mexico

Apache Agates
Ejido El Apache, Chihuahua Pro., Mexico

Despite Gem Shop Inc.'s recent mining attempt, good Apache agates are not quite available. The Best Apache Agates were mined in 1960s mainly for cabbing so slabs are expected to be encountered but whole roughs or halves do show up from time to time. Most agates are clear and hollow, often filled with quartz or calcite. There have been some finds of solid agates with swirls of red, brown, orange and yellow that are not limited to typically colorless bands. The well-known agate with barn owl apparition is an example of Apache Agate. The story about Apache Agate mining can be read at Gem Shop Inc's website.
I find it interesting to note that some nodules have cauliflower-like appearance and that tells me that the original cauliflower-like mineral evaporate aggregates were dissolved leaving behind the voids to be filled in by agate.

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Rough Appearance: Green dotted with orangish-red agates with plenty of irregular pits.
Often contain clear agate with some red and orange hues, sometimes with spheres in them.
The shapes of the nodules are not well defined, and some are in cauliflower forms (psuedmorphs).
Some agates will have those little spheres with them.


Typical agates		Not sure if it's Apache agate but it has similar skin and found with a bunch of Apache agate roughs I obtained.