A small but rich pocket, recently uncovered on ‘the Carver’, is yielding an amazing number of geodes and nodules. The nodules contain banded blue and gray agates and many contain amethyst and smoky quartz crystals found within geodes (hollows) within the nodules. One large geode has a spectacular void with a sparkly druzey cavity. This pocket, which is still being explored, has yielded hundreds of nodules and geodes, some as small as a finger nail, some exceeding 17 pounds in weight.

On one particular hunting foray, the pocket yielded blue, gray, and white banded agate nodules of the following weights: 17.6 pounds, two at 13 pounds each, 8.2 pounds, two at 3.4 pounds each, and 2.7 pounds. On another rocking foray, an astounding quantity of medium-sized nodules was recovered.

I am in the process of cutting and polishing many of these nodules, although with the number involved the task will take a long time. Below are photos which show the results of some of the cutting and polishing thus far. Ongoing exploration of the pocket will hopefully produce many more great specimens. Why all of these nodules derive from a relatively small pocket (area) remains under investigation. There is lava bedrock in the immediate area where these nodules were found and this lava contains nodules/geodes still in matrix. Accordingly, while I can definitively say the nodules were formed in or near this pocket, why there are so many and they have relatively uniform coloration is subject to speculation.

From the beginning of my explorations on ‘the Carver’, I have been surprised by the diversity of coloration and sagenitic inclusions I have been finding. Contrary to this diversity that I have been finding for 10 years, this pocket has relatively little diversity of coloration and sagenitic inclusions except that there are a great number of sagenitic ‘sun bursts,’ which are seen in many of the small nodules, and much less frequently in the larger nodules and geodes. Some of these sagenitic ‘sun bursts’ are in the photos shown. Over the last month we have had a lot of rain in West Texas and, as a result, we have more grass than usual, making rock hunting difficult and dangerous, given the possibility of encountering rattlesnakes. Despite these conditions, I have had a wonderful month of rock hunting, as evidenced by this post.