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Dwarves' Earth Treasures Museum:
Chubuk Thundereggs
from few agate mines around Chubuk (north of Ankara), Turkey
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    Turkey is getting to be renowned for having one of few sites around the world where high percentage of agate have been found containing pseudomorphs and sagenite inclusions.  The agates are actually the forms of thunderegg cores which the shells have mostly been eroded away as a result of exposure to weathering for millennia and it is rare to find any agate cores with thunderegg shells still attached to them.. The cores were dug from the several meters of clay layers that has been decomposed from the pertile(rhyolitic) lava beds.
     The zeolites possibly laumonite sometimes encrusted with calcite have grown in the thunderegg cavities before being replaced and preserved by the gentle growth of agate and the colors tend to come in a range from white to to brown, sometimes black. Occasionally, the agates with reddish to yellowish colors have been found.  Some thundereggs contain highly contrasting white and black "waterline" layers. I have donated two very good turkish thundereggs to Paul "GeodeKid" Calburn's collection housed at Luna Mimbres Museum in Deming, New Mexico. More information on the turkish agates can be found at Euro-Bir website.


Outstanding pair showing the agate preserved pseudomorphs after calcite encrusted zeolite possibly laumonite

Sagenite fans with thunderegg rhyolite shells still attached to the pair.

Very busy Pseudomorph Agate!


Typical agate but with black colors.



 

Examples of banded agates from Turkey