Dwarves' Earth Treasures Museum: Tampa Bay Agatized Coral Fossls
Beaches of Tampa bay, Florida
.
The corals and sponges of Miocene
(30 million years ago) died and got buried by the sediments. Eventually,
the sediments hardened and the coral bodies decomposed away leaving behind
the molds (coral-shaped cavities). One time, the Gulf of Mexico sea got
so saturated with silica that excess silica ended up being deposited in
the coral-shaped molds a layer by layer, hence "agatized fossils". The
agatized corals demonstrated the fact that the agates were formed from
cool solutions not hydrothermal(hot) solutionsas widely believed.
The agatized corals come in
great variety of sizes and shapes, and brown, gray and tan are most common
colors. Black and red colors are quite desirable. It appears that quartz
crystals are somewhat rare (I cut many agatized coral roughs and very few
have quartz crystals at all). I heard that the Tampa bay Agatized Corals
are no longer available due to the sources becoming "No Trespassing!" private
properties as well as urban spawning.
I have several large specimens,
but they're too big for my 8" flat-grinding & dry-polishing machine
and too light for vibrating lap machines. It would be very nice to have
a wide sized sanding belt machine with 6" or wider 60-grit silicon carbide
sanding belts which would be far inexpensive than those big rotating lap
machines.
My favorite!
How rare is red color?
Shows strong banding when fluorescing under UV light!
