Home / Maine

Tag: Maine

COLD SNOWY WEATHER = LOTS OF NEW ROCK SPECIMENS FROM THE CARVER

COLD SNOWY WEATHER = LOTS OF NEW ROCK SPECIMENS FROM THE CARVER

By /February 19, 2025 /1 comment /Cut Rocks

Let’s see what we’ve got today! Rock #5828I love this rock. Be sure to click on the image to enlarge it! Rock #5863Fragmented filament blue agate geode Rock #5844All that sagenitic stuff that makes The Carver rocks geologically interesting Rock #5868Eye agate/fortification agate—Click on the image to zoom in on it. Rock #5858I just like this rock! Rock #5859A thrill to cut and polish Rock #5814 Rock #5815Rocks 5814 and 5815 are both sides of a fist sized blue fragmented filament agate.I loved cutting and polishing this stone. Rock #5883A cross-section of a blue agate nodule with a really cool shape and color Rock #5898A perfect yellow banded agate Rock #5829Lots to unpack here: electric blue fortification agate, plume agate surrounding brown shards of lava Rock #5830Click on the image to enlarge it and zoom on the red/yellow/green blob in the upper left side of this specimen Rock # 5861Click […]

Read More

Texas Amethyst Agate World Headquarters on a peaceful winter night in February 2025!

Texas Amethyst Agate World Headquarters on a peaceful winter night in February 2025!

By /February 18, 2025 /2 comments /News

Two views: So much snow . . . And so many stars!

Cold and Snowy January and February = Lots More Cabs!

Cold and Snowy January and February = Lots More Cabs!

By /February 17, 2025 /4 comments /Cut Rocks

The first half of January 2025 was cold with not much snow, and then it started snowing, and it’s been snowing more or less constantly thru today, February 16, with more on the way in the coming week! Texas-sized Icicle, but in Maine! So outside activities, other than bringing in firewood for the wood stove, have been very limited and therefore this is a great opportunity to cut and polish stones. Cut wood, then cut rocks . . . This posting is just about the cabs I have cut recently. The next one will feature the polished rock specimens recently cut. I hope you enjoy the variety of the new cuttings, it was a hoot for me! Rock #5892Bullfrog Agate Geode Rock #5903Plume Agate Rock #5906Paisley Agate Rock #5880 Rock #5884 Rock #5886 Rock #5887 Rock #5891 Rock #5901 Rock #5905 Rock #5890 Rock #5841 Rock #5839 Rock #5845

From Western Europe to Northport, Maine

From Western Europe to Northport, Maine

By /April 21, 2023 /0 comments /Geology

Eons ago, the featured stone was part of western Europe. It was part of the European plate which, according to plate tectonic scientists, crashed into the North American plate. When this occurred, a small portion of the European plate broke off and was left stranded. It attached to the North American plate when the two plates subsequently parted again. This plate movement slowly increased the distance between Europe and North America, which created the Atlantic Ocean. As these plates continued to move apart, there was a ripping of the ocean floor in the Atlantic, which explains the volcanic activity that is still going on in Iceland and the mid-Atlantic Ocean area. Amphibolite / Rock #5142 So……what about this stone? The featured stone is from that part of the European crustal plate which rammed into what is now Northport, Maine, where my son Josh lives and I have a small camp. […]

Read More

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 […]

Read More

Odd Fellows "All Seeing Eye" Agate

Odd Fellows “All Seeing Eye” Agate

By /April 26, 2022 /3 comments /Cut Rocks

Folks looking at my polished stones often comment on seeing an image in the stone. Usually, I see the image they point out, but I did not see it until it was brought to my attention. It is much like seeing faces or images in the clouds. Well, this week after I cut and polished a cabochon, I saw the Odd Fellows ‘All Seeing Eye’. A bit of history and personal history is in order. Rock #4698 The “Eye” The Odd Fellows were a very popular fraternal organization with over 1,000,000 US members ‘back in the day’. They were social, secretive and ritualistic, much like the Masonic order. They were also charitable and had one basic requirement in order to belong: the belief in a supreme being (God). Their primary and most famous symbol was the ‘All Seeing Eye’ which was also a Masonic symbol. In fact, our founding fathers, […]

Read More

Maine Coast Plasma Jasper: New Video

Maine Coast Plasma Jasper: New Video

By /March 14, 2022 /0 comments /Geology

Maine coast plasma jasper is not a native stone. It was carried here by the continental glaciers that covered Maine with 10,000 feet of ice a mere 14,000 years ago. When the ice melted, it left behind on parts of the Maine coast this greenish plasma jasper. The stone is many shades of green to grey, with white flecks and an ‘other worldly’ plasma pattern, similar to a space nebula as seen through a powerful telescope. The jasper is hard and fracture resistant. It polishes, but not easily. It has a waxy texture which is key to identification. It shows a conchoidal fracture. I don’t know the bedrock source of this material except that it is north of here in Maine or Canada. Rock #4337 : Click to enlarge Rock #4338 : Click to enlarge Rock #4367 : Click to enlarge

Winter Stone Cutting and Wood Cutting in Maine

Winter Stone Cutting and Wood Cutting in Maine

By /January 12, 2022 /3 comments /Cut Rocks

My cutting of the voluminous Carver material continues between wood cutting activity to heat my home. Rock #4604 Rock #4606 Winter is wood cutting time in Maine as the swamps and low places, which are otherwise filled with water, freeze hard, leveling out the low muddy places. I access these frozen places on my ATV and cut and haul out my firewood. I split the wood with my wood splitter and then stack it on my porch (a 2 to 4 day supply), move it inside, and then ‘feed’ my wood stove as needed. Stove and Woodpile Splitter and Woodpile Why do I store wood inside when it is piled conveniently on the porch? Because this morning at 5 a.m. it was 7 degrees above zero and at 9:30 a.m. it had dropped to 0 degrees! Warm wood burns easier than cold wood. Cutting rocks is much easier than cutting […]

Read More

Green plasma jasper from the shore of the Penobscot Bay, Maine

Green plasma jasper from the shore of the Penobscot Bay, Maine

By /October 29, 2021 /0 comments /Geology

So far this is the only stone not from The Carver and displayed on this website. Green plasma jasper is found on the shore of many (but not all) Penobscot Bay islands. It is a visitor to the Maine coast, carried by gigantic glaciers nearly two miles thick that came down from Canada to the Penobscot Bay and then melted approximately 10,000 years ago, leaving the green plasma jasper behind. The bedrock source of green plasma jasper has not yet been determined by me, but my guess is that its source is hundreds of miles north of the Penobscot Bay. This uniquely shaped pendant is approximately 3 inches long and set in goldfill. I think it would look good with a heavy gold chain or leather. Green plasma jasper Oval plasma jasper unset

Finally: New Shop Up and Running! AND a new Photo Gallery!

Finally: New Shop Up and Running! AND a new Photo Gallery!

By /March 2, 2021 /1 comment /Cut Rocks

Months behind schedule, the shop is making rocks shiny again, although the building is not yet complete. So much for ‘getting done before the snow flies!’ The silversmith shop is built, but I have yet to find my smithing tools which are in ‘below zero’ storage. I have so many 5 gallon buckets of as yet uncut ‘Carver’ stones, it will no doubt take a few years to complete the intensive high grading. Not a problem I mind having, since the most fun (after collecting in the field) is cutting the stones open and seeing the amazing beauty and diversity of colors and agate/jasper types awaiting my eyes. I’ll be sharing this amazing diversity of color, patterns and agate types as I cut and polish. For now, I am showing the new discoveries so far since the shop reopening. These are the result of opening just ONE tub of rocks […]

Read More