Bayg Agate Field

Bayg agate field is the only agate field which has mined in Iran systematically atleast during several last decades. However now are all abandoned. Bayge agate field has an area about 110 km2 and located 22 km northwest of Torbat-e-Heydariyeh city. One of the large cities which located in the south of Mashad, the capital of Khorassan-e-Razavi province in northeast Iran.

 Economic importance of this agate field is not due to its colorful agates, converse the agates those come from the mines of this area are mostly colorless. But two characteristics highlight these agates: first their huge economical reservoir and the second their artificial dye-ability which causes the cabochon makers of Mashad regard agates which come from Bayg.    

Agates of Bayg are all vein type and could be seen in two major categories: colorless banded agates and red-green to brown-yellow plume agates. Area consist of a thick volcanic sequence which is Paleocene-Quaternary in age, geologically. It could be divided in 2 main parts. Tuff and volcano clastic rocks in lower part, which has green-gray color and andesitic in composition, and host the agate veins. Lava flows at upper part which are mainly andesitic to basaltic in composition and show columnar structure in large scale. This unit forms the bluff crests of eminences and now are extracting for using in ornamental stone industry.        

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