Description
Volcano agate tower, cut and polished, standing 30cm tall and weighing 868g. In daylight the stone reads as bands of black and grey across the top, a wide cream and fawn section through the middle carrying fine dark branching markings, and a band of grey druzy pockets near the base.
This is a large piece. Most volcano agate towers on sale in the UK sit under 15cm and a few hundred grams, so at 30cm and close to a kilogram this one wants a floor spot or a low shelf rather than a windowsill.
Volcano agate under UV light
Under ultraviolet the tower changes completely. The darker bands come up a strong green, the cream section glows a paler yellow, and the branching markings stay dark against it.
A standard 395nm UV torch is all that is needed, the ordinary kind sold for checking banknotes. There is no need for a specialist lamp.
The glow is a property of the stone rather than a coating, so it does not wear off, rub away or fade with handling.
This tower was filmed under UV before listing and that footage is on this page. What you are watching is this piece, not a stock clip of similar material.
What volcano agate actually is
Volcano agate is a trade name rather than a mineral species. There is no such entry in the mineralogical record, which is why searching the term turns up as many people asking what it is as shops selling it.
The material itself is agate, a banded form of chalcedony, which is a microcrystalline form of quartz. Agate like this forms inside gas cavities in cooling volcanic rock, where silica rich fluids fill the space in layers over a very long period. The volcanic origin is real, and that is where the trade name comes from.
What the name does not tell you is where a given piece was mined. No locality has been declared for this one, so none is claimed here, and no treatment or dye has been declared either.
Nothing here has been tested in a laboratory, including the cause of the glow. What is described on this page is what can be seen, photographed and filmed, not what has been measured.
About this piece
The tower in the photographs and the video is the tower that arrives. Nothing is swapped for something similar.
Agate varies genuinely from piece to piece. The banding, the druzy pockets and the pattern in the cream section belong to this volcano agate tower alone, and the next one cut from the same material will look nothing like it.
Traditional correspondences
Agate is worked with for steadiness in traditional practice. It is one of the stones associated with patience and with the slow settling of something rather than a fast shift, which suits the way it forms, in thin layers over a very long stretch of time.
The tower form is traditionally used to hold a focus in one place in a room. A piece of this weight tends to stay where it is put.
There is something worth noticing in a stone that looks one way in daylight and another under a different light. Nothing about it has changed. Only what is being used to look at it.
Correspondences are traditional and are offered as part of a practice, not as a substitute for medical or professional advice.
Caring for a volcano agate tower
Agate sits at 6.5 to 7 on the Mohs scale, which is hard enough for ordinary handling and display.
The druzy pockets near the base are the fragile part. Those small crystal faces will chip if the tower is knocked against a hard surface, so set it down rather than standing it down.
Avoid soaking it. Those same pockets and any open seams will trap water and hold it, and water sitting in a cavity does the stone no favours.
Since no treatment has been declared for this piece, keep it out of prolonged direct sunlight as a precaution. Colour treated agate is common in the trade and it fades in strong sun. Ordinary room light is fine.
To cleanse, use sound, breath or moonlight.
What you receive
The volcano agate tower shown in the photographs and video, and nothing else. Wrapped and posted from Shropshire by Royal Mail Tracked.
Browse the rest of the crystal towers, or see what else is in stock in agate.
For the mineralogy behind the material, Mindat holds the reference data on chalcedony.
