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Worm Agates from Iran???
A friend of mine, Mr.Maziar Nazari from Iran, asked me a question which I couldn't solve for him and in order to find out what these socalled 'Worm Agates' are I placed his question and a picture on my website too;
http://agates.freeservers.com/whats_new.html
Anybody who knows the answer or like to tell us his opinion about the subject trying to solve this mystery can contact either Mr.Nazari himself or me (Robert M.B.de Jager) at:
maziar_nazari@hotmail.com
or
---- But what a strange thing that I found last week!
There is a small bentonite mine near the small town that I teach in it's
University, Ashtian, about 230km SW of Tehran.
Last week after ending my class I went to the mine. This mine is formed by
hydrothermal alteration of andesitic green tuffs (which is Eocene in age) in
to bentonite (mostly calcium bentonite), however I have not seen any
analysis on it, by now. When I was walking in the pit, in a corner of one of
the walls I saw a group of some wonderful tube-like things, which are pale
pink in color and outcropped from the bentonite.
When I inspected them in close I saw what you could see now in attached
photo.
Still I don't sure what are they really, but they are like some root-like
silicified fossils with a central canal, that is full filled with concentric
bands of agate those are mostly colorful.
The outer part surface is not resembled in trunks of pet. woods, and mostly
are like to roots or remnants of digger animals (e.g. worms or so on). No
sample shows the vegetation or animal structures or textures, but from
appearance of the environment that they formed in it, I guess that they may
be the fossil remnants of "Tube Worms" that live near "Black Smokers" near
Mid Oceanic Ridges. About Black Smokers I must say that my MSc. Thesis
was on one of the Kuroko type ore deposit in Kashan that is related to the
ancient black smokers. There is only an extensive alteration zone of
bentonitization beside worm agates. However the extensive alteration of
this type is not uncommon in black smokers, but I have not seen any
sulfide mineralization.
However I think this conclusion is too hastily. There were a numbers of
them in that part of mine and nobody knows anything about them.
I think it would be interesting for you (Robert) and also you might see agates
like these previously.
I will take some photos from their outcrop in mine next week, if the weather
would be so good for field and I would be grateful to know your idea about
them. Because of snowy weather of mine district I can not go there at least few
next weeks. -----
Thank you for your interest in those "Worm agates" and thank you so much for
your interest in solving this enigma!
Best wishes from Persian Agates Land,
Maziar.
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