First New Maine Shop Gallery

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This gallery displays the new specimens discovered since the shop has re-opened in Maine. These are the result of just one tub of rocks from which the most interesting were chosen for cutting!

  1. All are cabbed slices from a single small Carver geode:

2. Both are free form — yellow quartz (citrine) surrounded agate geodes which get more red color as the center of the stone is reached:

3. Both from a single fortification agate with an ‘eye agate’! Note the round yellow eye! Fortification agates are named for the angular shape seen on many medieval forts when viewed from above:

Shown here is an example: Fortification Bourtange, Groningen province, Netherlands:

4. Both are jaspagate: part Jasper and part agate, cut from two different stones:

5. Cab from a clear quartz geode with a milky quartz center with tiny quartz crystals. The milky white going to the stone’s edge is what is referred to as the ‘fill tube’. In fact, most scientists think it is not a fill tube for the agate, but rather an exit tube. This is complicated but appears to be the result of an electrochemical reaction that creates the internal banding in geodes. Recent Rock & Gem magazines have described this process:

6. Nearly clear quartz nodule geode with a ghostly-looking center. Note the tiny dendritic agate on the upper edge. It looks like a tree or fern:

7. Free form cab from a slice of a geode. A picture agate? What do you see?

8. Flower garden agate. The red (likely from iron) is more dominant than in the prior photo:

9. An uncut Carver citrine nodule/agate, lightly ground and polished on its exterior to highlight the white/black sagenites which formed on the nodule’s exterior:

10. Another Carver citrine or carnelian nodule/agate, lightly polished on the exterior to highlight the white sagenites which formed on the nodule’s exterior:

11. The other side of the sagenite nodule above. Kind of looks like deep space. What do you see?

12. This is a polished thin slab from a 3″+ yellow-banded agate/nodule/geode. Yellow agates (citrine) are not common, but are found (in good numbers) on a limited area of The Carver. This is a rare specimen because of its relatively large size and perfect yellow/white banding, with no fractures which are common in many of The Carver geode nodules.