Feather Ridge plume Agate 23,5 ct

Agate with basanite dopped cabochon. Black doped doublets are a good way to emphasize contrast in highly transparent clear material.

Feather Ridge Claim is found in the area of Graveyard Point, in eastern Oregon, an area rich in many different varieties of mostly white plume agate dikes. Feather Ridge Claim is owned by Philip Stephenson.

VERY INTERESTING: The genesis of plumes in agates has been hypothesized to be bacterial in origin. It is the result of biomineralization by biofilms of extremophile bacteria. Living analogues have been discovered in a number of today’s environments. The gelatinous consistency of the agate that was forming was a perfect substrate for the proliferation of these colonies within the agates. So we can say that plumes are more a fossil than a mineral.

You can find more information about the bacterial life within agates and other minerals in the book “Biominerals” (Campos-Venuti, 2022).