Crab Fire Agate

Hello All,

I thought I would pull this out of the previous fire agate and crabfire agate thread as this applies only to the material being marketed as Crab Fire Agate.

I have been watching different sites for any info on this materail for a while now and I also finally got a hold of some. After subjecting it to some rather non scientific tests, I have come to several conclusions.

First, I noticed a lot of Fire Agate material for sale that was carnelian and has sometimes been refered to as "Crackle Agate". This material has been heated and cooled quickly to crack the material. I remember doing this myself a number of years ago to glass marbles.

I brought up the crakle material as it has some interesting similarities to the Crab fire Agate. After looking at this material, I noticed the fracture pattern had a resemblence to Crackle Agate and cracked marbles. The only difference was the white color pattern along the fractures. Considering I would only be out about 25 cents, I whacked a large bead and suceeded in cracking it into three pieces rather than crushing the entire thing. As I mentioned, there was some "unscientific techniques" applied during testing. The interior color of the bead was not at all lightly colored around the fragment edges seen on the exterior of the bead. It was a uniform carnelian red. Obviously, some kind of color treatment has been used that penetrated about .5 mm into the bead. I am assuming the bead was cut to shape and then treated because of the uniformity of color penetration depth along all the breaks I made. Curiosity got me, as several other beads showed banding typical of agate. Once more, the hammer came down. The white color penetrated along the fractures to the same depth as the first bead. The agate banding pattern continued through the fragment in a normal pattern for banded agate.

I then fired up my jewelers torch and put some heat to several pieces. I consider this more abuse to the stone rather than scientific investigation. Whatever was used to penetrate and color the original material didn't seem to burn or smell as some acrylics and other material used to stabilize other stones will do. It also did not react to several cleaning solvents I soaked them in. All I can say is the surface color treatment resembled the same treatment used to make DZI beads from regular agate. Possibly, someone has come up with a new twist on that process to create Crab Fire Agate.

In conclusion, Crab Fire Agate is an agate that has been subjected to one or more forms of treatment to give it the pattern it shows. An hypothesis here runs something like heat treating the original stone to bring out the orange and red color, then rapid cooling to create the fracures. Then, some kind of dying treatment and/or acid wash to outline the fractures in a whitish color. Then the material was polished.

Just my 2 cents worth here for those inquiring about this material.

Best regards,
Al O

This procedure sounds like a similar one they use on opal. Sometimes they soak cut opal cabochons in a sugar solution for a period of time then treat with acid to burn the sugar which is supposed to intensify the color.

Steve

We are new to the Rock Hounding Hobby and are looking for an outlet for our AZ Fire Agate. We have also found Red Druzy. Anyone interested?

Al...is there any fire in the piece(s) you acquired? No fire then simply not fire agate....color does not make fire

Hello Don,

Good question, and I should have addressed it. It has no "fire" at all. I noticed in my browsing about the bead world that it appears the cutters are applying the name "fire" to almost any red stone, particulary agates. I know we get going here on this forum about correct naming of minerals, synonyms, etc. in both the scientific arena and the world of metaphysics. If any of you think that is a crazy enough world of wild naming, you ought to check out the bead world! I will say this about the name of this particular material: cook up some crab or lobster and the shell turns the same orange to red color as the color of the bulk of this stone. That may explain the crab part of the name.

Best Regards,
Al O

Thanks, Al,....much of the 'carnelian' found out here in the desert (southern New Mexico) would probably make wonderful "crabby fire(less) agate" beads....maybe I picked the wrong field of endeavor (but I do give a top-notch assay)

Crap, I thought so... Crab Fire Agate, there is something about it! I buy it on Ebay as an 'new' kind of mineral. It is just nice to use them in juwellery. First, it looked just natural, but on the moment there are Chinese sellers that bring out 'rainbow crab fire agate' with stupig colors like 'rainbow jade' is having. You know those gum ball colors?
Finally, when these Chinese people copy or make these beads 'better' than there (natural looking) original forrunners, fire agate can;t be natural. Because meanwhile there is even bright yellow and probably purple 'crab fire agate'. In orange is was such a sweat dream.. Whheee, crie!!