Enhydros, Nature's Ancient Water Bottle

-
What Are Enhydros?


An Agate Enhydro From Brazil


    Enhydros are minerals with liquid water trapped inside of them. Enhydros are most commonly made of agate or quartz. Usually, quartz "enhydros" are actually called "Fluid Inclusions". Seeing as though that is what they are, that is what we should call them. Geodes with water inside are enhydros. An easy way to picture an enhydro is by imagining a geode with water trapped inside the mineral instead of air. Enhydros are very common, with many on the market, ranging from 15 dollars to more than 1500 dollars. 


How Are Enhydros Formed?


    Enhydros are minerals that form around small or large bodies of water. Whilst forming, the mineral's walls build up around the water and end up encasing it in the mineral, whether it be agate, quartz, or any other mineral. Often times in quartz fluid inclusions, you can spot a tiny air bubble. Quartz fluid inclusions with moving bubbles are often more valuable, whilst the ones with stationary or no bubbles at all are less sought after. This doesn't make enhydros any less amazing, as it is a very amazing feeling to have water that is millions of years old in your possession. 


Crystals with Water in them or Enhydro Crystals - Crystal Genn
A Quartz Fluid Inclusion


How Can You Identify an Enhydro?


    High-quality enhydros are mainly found in the Brandberg Mountain range in South Africa, but they are common in places such as China or Brazil. You can also find them in areas that have, or once had volcanic activity. One way to identify an enhydro is its looks. Does it look like it has a bubble in it? Does it seem to have a water line? If you believe you have either, or both, you should take a flashlight to the back of the mineral to see if you can get a more defined look. If you determine that there is water inside, you should shake it, to make sure you have water inside. This is the second way to identify an enhydro. For larger enhydros, such as the agate ones, its very easy to hear the water sloshing around inside the cavity. This may not work for the quartz fluid inclusions, as most are not large enough to make a sound when shaken. 



This is enhydro agate. A natural semi precious stone filled with water. They are over 2 million years old. : mildlyinteresting
Agate Enhydros





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Canadaspis

-
Image
Canadaspis      Canadaspis was a very odd genus of anthropoid from the Cambrian Era. Today, I'm mainly focusing on Canadaspis Perfecta, but I may cover the other species in the future.  Its name means "Shield of Canada", as it had a large shield type body part that had covered its head. This shield is actually called a carapace.  Canadaspis probably used its legs to crawl on the Cambrian seafloor, scavenging plants or smaller animals. Most Canadaspis' are found in the Burgess Shale in Canada but they can be found in areas like Utah, Nevada, and China.     Canadaspis most likely used its multiple legs to stir up the sediment on the seafloor, in turn kicking up possible food and directing it into their mouth(s?). They were also likely prey for larger animals, but due to their extremely small size (roughly 47 millimeters long), they probably weren't targeted by large predators such as Anomalocaridia. A Canadaspis compared to  a 1.8-meter tall person ...
Read more

A Tribute to the Trilobites

-
Image
What were trilobites?     Trilobites were marine arachnomorph arthropods that were first introduced during the Cambrian Explosion in which life evolved rapidly, creating many new species of animals. The trilobites were one of the most successful early animals, existing for nearly 300 million years. The trilobites went extinct about 250 million years ago in the end-Permian extinction. What types of trilobites were there?     There were many different species of trilobites spanning their 300 million year reign. Some include the  "Kainops Invius" from the Early Devonian and the  "Paradoxides sp"  from the late Cambrian. Different types of trilobites had different lifestyles. There were trilobites that moved over the seabed as predators, filter feeders, and scavengers. Others swam and some even crawled on land.  A very well preserved Kainops Invius specimen A Paradoxidae specimen The evolution of the trilobite      As said before, the ...
Read more

Pachytheca

-
Image
  The Pachytheca A Pachytheca from Gileppe, Belgium Diameter - 2 mm Pachytheca is hypothesized to be a genus of possible early land plants. Pachytheca lived from the Silurian to the middle Devonian era. The specimens that have been discovered have measured from 1 mm to 6mm in diameter, and have a special internal structure. Pachytheca are spherical and have two different areas. The inner area called the medulla consists of tightly packed brittle tubes. The outer area, dubbed the "bark", consists of radially arranged stronger tubes.  The internal structure of a Pachytheca The Pachytheca was named by a man called J. D. Hooker in 1853. When first discovered, they were thought to be seed-like objects or a part of a fishes jaw. In 1889, J. D. took the spheres for colonies of algae, and are now classified as a Nematophyte, which is a group of puzzling organisms. Nematophytes are a group of land organisms that include plants and algae. They are only known in the fossil record as exi...
Read more