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Year: 2022

Season’s Greetings with a Red Ribboned Geode!

Season’s Greetings with a Red Ribboned Geode!

By /December 16, 2022 /1 comment /Cut Rocks

A striking new geode and cab is cut as The Carver Gallery and Shop reopens after a two and a half month hiatus during home renovations! Well, that explains why you have not heard from me in a while. Now back in business, the geode and the cab cut from the geode display brilliant red ribbons around the crystal lined geode pocket. If that is not cool enough, how about the sky blue between the dual red ribbons! Red ribbons wrap the “Christmas geode’s” sky blue center surrounding the crystal lined pocket Seems “Merry Christmasy” and a harbinger for a Happy New Year for me and, hopefully, you all as well.

Crystal Oddity Encapsulated in a Blue Fortification Agate

Crystal Oddity Encapsulated in a Blue Fortification Agate

By /October 7, 2022 /1 comment /Cut Rocks

This is a cross section of a blue agate nodule from The Carver Agate Field. Rock #4914 The small nodule, approximately 2 inches across, was initially cut and lightly shaped to capture the fortification agate in the center of the stone, as well as the ‘white eye’ on the left-hand side of the stone. And for even more interest, there was a contrasting brown spot on the upper right-hand part of the stone. That explains why I was cutting this stone in the way it was cut. Rock #4914 magnified Well, once cut and polished and subjected to modest magnification, the brown spot suddenly and unexpectedly became the highlight of the stone and the subject of this blog. Magnification, as shown above, produced a highly angular brown crystalline structure and not shards of broken or fragmented stone encased later in the agate. When this agate nodule formed inside of a […]

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A Ghost and Four Other Carver Agates Cut This Week

A Ghost and Four Other Carver Agates Cut This Week

By /October 2, 2022 /2 comments /Cut Rocks

The most interesting of the five stones is the “ghost,” shown below in two different angles. Click each image to see an enlarged version. Rock #4910 Rock #4909 Next we have a yellow fortification agate in an “octopus garden beneath the sea.” Rock #4894       Photo 4906 below is the slab from another nodule creating a cut and polished agate which looked blue before being cut and more red to orange after being fully polished.      Rock #4906 Rock #4906 close-up Photo 4896 is a jasper/agate free form designer cab. I just liked the colors.     Rock #4896 For the lapidists out there, photo 4899 below, which I call the flower garden agate. is the most interesting cut that I have done in a while. Usually I take a nodule, cut a thin slab from a crosscut of the nodule, and then grind and polish, as is the case in all […]

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Yellow Fortification Agate Geode Cabochon

Yellow Fortification Agate Geode Cabochon

By /September 25, 2022 /2 comments /Cut Rocks

Rock #4876Click to enlarge This is a beautiful cab cut from a cross cut slab from a Carver geode. The crystal-lined geode center sparkles in the center of the yellow fortification agate. The sagenitic material (green and brown stuff) along the top edge of the stone indicates that this was the bottom of the geode when formed in a lava gas pocket. The sagenitic material likely fell off the inside top of the gas bubble pocket to the bottom of the gas bubble pocket where it was encapsulated by bluish agate (silica) as it filled the gas bubble pocket. See photo 4877 below which is the same stone photographed with the sagenitic material on the bottom of the stone as it would have been formed. Rock #4877Click to enlarge

Lava Breccia in Agate Matrix

Lava Breccia in Agate Matrix

By /September 21, 2022 /1 comment /Cut Rocks

What a unique and interesting cab! Close-up shows lava shard at top centerClick on the image to view an enlarged version Another cab from the same stoneNote the same lava shard (top center) These two cabochons were cut from a single stone. The lava shard (top center in both stones) shows their common origin. Above is another agate breccia with banded agate (top and lower right shards) with a lava shard in the lower center of the stone. Note the eye agate on the left center edge of the cut stone. While this stone is not pretty, it sure is interesting—at least to an old rocker like me.

Mystery Crystals Appear AGAIN: New information from new specimen

Mystery Crystals Appear AGAIN: New information from new specimen

By /September 18, 2022 /4 comments /Cut Rocks

My June 2021 blog posting identified long petite black mineral crystals which had not been seen by me before in over 14 years of cutting thousands of ‘Carver agate field’ geodes. The June 2021 find was the only exemplar I had seen–until now! The new specimen photos below offer better views of the crystals. Interestingly, the crystals in both specimens appear to have grown out of and through an otherwise perfectly formed clear crystal lined geode center. The crystals, while appearing very fragile, are actually quite robust, being resistant to damage from washing the stone (after being cut open) to remove cutting oil, and from polishing on a bull wheel grinder. There is tremendous vibration generated from using the bull wheel, which turns very high RPMs and utilizes a 100 grit belt as part of the process. So, the crystals are not fragile or water soluble, but are very rare […]

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Why did I cut that stone that way?

Why did I cut that stone that way?

By /August 15, 2022 /3 comments /Cut Rocks

Cutting and polishing a stone is often a matter of the stone’s pattern and coloration. The larger the pattern of the stone to be cut, the larger the finished stone will need to be. A very petite pattern will physically fit into a small cut stone, but will be so small in a piece of jewelry when set that you can’t see the pattern from the distance it is viewed. So, the pattern of the feature you want to highlight must be large enough to be seen by someone standing next to you. The shape of the cab being cut, e.g., oval, round, triangle, rectangle, square, or free form, will limit what part of the pattern can be captured in the finished cut stone. Accordingly, I do many designer free form shapes and sizes and I also cut a great many large cabs in order to capture the maximum part […]

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TexasAmethystAgate Islesboro, Maine, Studio Tour

TexasAmethystAgate Islesboro, Maine, Studio Tour

By /July 26, 2022 /6 comments /Jewelry

I recently joined the Islesboro Arts Collective and participated in the group’s first annual studio tour held July 9, 2022. While Texas Amethyst Agate is dedicated to researching and documenting The Carver Agate Field of West Texas, I expanded this focus to participate in this event by adding Maine gemstones to my lapidary/jewelry works. The main stones featured included two handmade sterling silver cuff style Maine tourmaline bracelets. as well as jewelry incorporating three other gemstones found by me on Islesboro. These included green plasma jasper, brown/beige jasp-agate, and white Pripet Wharf marble included with ‘fools gold’. I crafted fancy designer freeform gemstones from each of these Maine stones and set them in a gold fill wire wrap to create pendants. I really loved the green plasma jasper which contrasts beautifully with the wire wrap. The three pendants prepared for the studio tour as well as the Maine tourmaline cuff […]

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Two Completely Different Triangular Free-form Cabs from The Carver

Two Completely Different Triangular Free-form Cabs from The Carver

By /June 26, 2022 /2 comments /Cut Rocks

These stones are all Carver agates, but completely dissimilar in their appearance. The First Stone The first stone looks like a deep blue underwater scene with multicolored sagenitic (cool stuff!) that look like underwater plants in an undersea cavern. Put your imagination to work and, if you are old like me, think of Lloyd Bridges and Sea Hunt! Rock # 4727 Click to enlarge Rock # 4727 detail Click to enlarge More Stones The next two stones are blue and white banded agate, one of which is a pyramidal free-form. While I have recently cut several other stones, I like these best. Rock #4711 Click to enlarge Rock #4711 Click to enlarge Rock #4713 Click to enlarge

New Free-form Cabs from The Carver

New Free-form Cabs from The Carver

By /June 24, 2022 /1 comment /Cut Rocks

The pictures tell the story of the fascinatingly unique and diverse agates I continue to find and cut. It is important to remember that all of these stones came out of the same geologic formation, yet they all look very different. Fun for me and, I hope, interesting for you. Rock #4705: Angular free-form agate Rock #4708 Rock #4709