A little rock-ology lesson.

First I want to thank all of you for the birthday wishes.  Love ya for it. I'm now 4 days older than I was last Thursday and I feel it.

These specimens were collected about 3 years ago. Still have a lot of them wrapped and stored in the shed. Never got pics of all we collected here. This is a mile square ranch we got permission to collect on and we don't take anyone here. So many different kinds of material in this area and lots of arrowheads.  You could pick up a 5 gallon bucket of chips in a hundred foot radius. I have picked up and tumbled lots of them. We went out yesterday and picked up the key to the gate and did some more hunting. Found some beautiful purple oolitic agate.  Pieces too large to pick up. Will have to bring large maul to get samples.  Didn't take pics. Picked up some small pieces of green agate with red and yellow moss.  Must have been favored by the Indians as I could find only chips and small pieces.  Couldn't find the source. I stayed fairly close to the truck.  We can go anywhere there is a road with the rig and pull off. No cross country driving. Usually park by the corrals or loading chute.  No cows around those and the ground is usually bare of grass. Lots of cow trails to follow and look for stuff.  Small bluffs and some lava domes where no grass grows. This is where we find most of the specimens. As usual Phillip took off on a hike. He took some pics that I haven't processed yet. He also found 5 arrowheads.  I only found 2 broken ones. I think the cows step on them and break them around the loading chutes.

The rock above is a broken onyx geode with hex crystals in the center.  What's unusual about them is the fact they have flat terminations instead of pointed ones. We have found rhomb shaped crystals here and hex also but they usually have the pointed terminations. Sample about the size of a grapefruit. Sample is specimen only.  Has no value as gem material. Definitely a rarity.

the rock above is an onyx geode with blue and white agate filling.  Has black, gold and red sagenite inclusions. The sagenite has formed tiny rosettes instead of the usual needle- like formations. The sample has some minute holes in it.  Portions cold be used as gem material. Not a plentiful material like it was found. Seems to be quite rare here.

Rock below is an onyx geode with alternating onyx and gold and dark red sagenite banding.  Center is purple agate with red sagenite inclusions. A black and white band  of tiny sagenite crystals surrounds a center pocket of clear agate with dark gold and cream mossy inclusions. A very definite rarity.  This piece is about the size of a large grapefruit.  Other half was was sold. We are keeping this half as a specimen.