Grape Agate · 74 g

Description

A compact Grape Agate specimen with rounded lavender-grey growths over darker purple areas. The clustered spheres and open spaces give this small piece a distinctive sculptural shape.

Grape Agate is a trade name for the rounded, grape-like quartz growth found in material from Sulawesi. The term botryoidal describes this clustered, rounded form. Grape Amethyst is another name used in the mineral trade.

Its supplied locality is Mamuju, Sulawesi Barat Province, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

You will receive the exact specimen photographed. Colour may vary with lighting and screen settings.

Its lavender and purple areas give the specimen a gentle colour palette, while reflections pick out the fine growth on the surface. The rounded habit is the main feature to follow through the piece: larger spheres establish the form, and smaller ones link them into an aggregate. This makes it an appealing example of how one mineral family can produce very different natural shapes.

Grape Agate is a trade name for grape-like aggregates of Quartz. It belongs to the silica family, but its rounded growth gives a very different appearance to familiar pointed rock crystal. The interest here is in the individual spheres and the larger shape they form together, with fine surface growth adding texture to the rounded outline.

The bunch-of-grapes effect comes from many adjoining rounded areas rather than one large crystal. Some areas are closely packed, while others leave small spaces through the group. Those changes give the surface depth. The relationship between the spheres, the finer crystalline areas and the underlying material is useful when comparing specimens of this distinctive habit.

The recorded origin is Mamuju, West Sulawesi, Indonesia. Within a collection of Quartz specimens, this locality gives the piece a geographical identity alongside its particular crystal habit and natural setting.

The specimen measures 60 × 50 × 40 mm, with a recorded weight of 74 g. The proportions give a useful guide to its place in a display, with the individual crystal arrangement and mineral association remaining the principal points of interest.

For display, support the stable base or the supplied mount rather than a projecting crystal. Quartz is relatively hard, but pointed ends and natural contact areas can still be damaged by an impact. Gentle handling helps preserve the arrangement that gives this individual specimen its character.