Hydroponics

Thunder Eggs

Gallery of Thunder Eggs

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Spheres

Gallery of Spheres Read More

Slabs

Gallery of Slabs Read More

Mystic Silica

Whilst being exquisitely beautiful and full of physical and chemical interest, I do not believe inanimate stones have any magical, spiritual or healing powers. Nevertheless, many people from all over the world do hold such views and thus a page on “mystic Silica” must be included for completeness. Just because I don’t believe it doesn’t mean there may be deeper meaning within these stones.

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Microscopic Silica

The colors and patterns found in the Silicas are due to inclusions of metal ions, crystals of other compounds, bits of “dirt” . Beautiful as they are when just looked at, under the microscope an even more beautiful world of colors shapes, swirls and twirls is revealed.

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Organic Silica

Silica has a unique property in that it can fossilize organic material, by replacement but it does preserve perfectly the organic structures that were originally present.

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Glasses

Perhaps the best known form of silica is glass. When molten silica cools rapidly, it doesn’t have time to align into a well organized structure (crystals) and stays in a higgledy-piggledy disorganized (albeit extremely viscous) liquid. This may occur in nature via  several mechanisms.

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Polymorphs

Silica can exist in several polymorphs and these forms can occur in a myriad of different guises:-

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Geodes

Sometimes within old lava fields are found rounded “geodes” of silica often with a rhyolite exterior.  These are known as agates, or Thunder eggs. Much like human beings, these geodes are built on the same basic pattern but each one is different from all the others. The silica is in the form of tiny microscopic crystals of quartz in a fibre or overlapping plate like configuration, known as chalcedony , agate and jasper being examples of this form of silica.

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