Juchem Agate – A Fascinating Non-Thunderegg Interlude

Here’s a real curiosity to keep you going during these wild days while I am deep in book launches rather than mud.  It’s not a thunderegg, it’s an agate nodule from the Juchem quarry, Germany – and it is also one of the most extraordinary textures I have seen in a while.  No matter how beautiful and perfect some banded agate may be, once you have seen it, you have seen it.  In this case, it is agate with a riddle – agate that twists the brain, as you try and work out how on earth it formed and unpick its complexity.  There are two types of calcite and two types of agate – or possibly more of both – that have all grown on top of each other and replaced each other.  White and pink is agate – clear and black is calcite.  A very complex rock.