Agates

AUGUST 24-25, 2016

Central Minnesota has some great agates.  Everything below on this post comes from a simple gravel road!  Some great finds.

This one has some crazy designs!

I like this one in comparison to the one above.  Just straight, water-level line.  

This one has some considerable size, and some great lines below the quartz.  

This is one of the biggest ones that I found on this excursion.  All I saw of it on the side of the road was the milky white top.  When I picked it up I saw the great design. 

These are all the smaller ones that I found, with a bottle cap for size comparison. 

And these are all the bigger ones, with the same bottle cap. 

The Biggest and Best

Here are some of the best agates we found during the week of August 14-21, 2016.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 21, 2016

On the way back from our vacation we stopped at a spot we knew about in east-central Minnesota.  Score!

This one has some great pink banding, although it's hard to see it in the photo.  Trust me, the pink color is even more pronounced in person.  

Paint.

Faint but distinct banding, along with some quartz.  

Found this one in some landscaping rocks near the spot we were looking at today.  

This one is bigger than the picture lets on, and it has some great banding.  This was the second-biggest agate we found today.   

This one is interesting, as it lacks a lot of the characteristic red color of most Lake Superior Agates. 

One thing that I've come to discover is how difficult it is to take good pictures of small(ish) rocks.  Case in point: this picture looks like garbage compared to what the agate looks like in real life.  

This one is very unique: significant banding with a big red eye in the corner.  

This was the size-winner for today: 1.9 ounces.  It never fails to amaze me how big an agate seems when you find it in the field, and how its size seems to shrink and shrink as time goes on!  Still, this was an exhilarating find!

These are all the agates we found today.  An incredible score. 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 16 and THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2016

My family went on a trip up north this past week, which afforded us some hunting opportunities.

The Mrs. found this one.  Look at those lines!

Subtle lines in a peanut butter agate. 

This is another example of how photos don't do the agates justice.  That dark layer toward the bottom is much darker in person.  It reminds me of a piece of candy with a chocolate layer.  

I found this one immediately after getting out of our car at some random outdoor hockey rink in northern Minnesota.

Betsy found this one as well.  Incredible pattern. 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 14, 2016

We went back to the honey hole today.  Every time I think we've completely picked it over, it yields even more nice agates.  

Hannah found this one, after she said she was bored and wanted to leave.  Finding this one changed her mind.  

Hannah also found this one, early in our hunt.  

Nice lines!

Water level agate.  

Small agate sandwich.

This is the biggest one I found today.  It's egg shaped, and almost as big. 

I like the dark color of the center of this one, with lines along the edges.  

Paint. 

Here are all of the agates we found at the honey hole today.  

FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 2016

Here's a good one with some quartz from our new honey hole. 

Another one.  I like how this one is completely intact, almost spherical.  That's rare for an agate.  

This is the same agate as above, but resting on the flashlight of my wife's phone.  With the light shining through it, it almost appears to be molten.  

AUGUST 7-13, 2016

My kids and I are in north-easter Iowa at our church's camp.  They have a lot of landscaping rocks, and you know what that means!

I'm not sure what kind of agate this is, but it definitely is one.  I may post this on a message board and get a consensus of more knowledgeable agate people.  

Love the white colors with banding. 

Click on this photo to enlarge.  You'll see some nice painting.  

 

This one looks, to me, like a piranha with its mouth open, about to take a bite.  See the eye?  See the mouth?  The quartz is the teeth.  

This pic and the one above it are of the same agate.  It has two sides where it is broken off and the center is exposed.  The pics don't do this one justice.  

This one is unique, and I'm not sure what it is.  My daughter Hannah found it.  The center is full of crystal - the type of which I am uncertain.  But the exterior definitely has all of the characteristics of agate.  And along the mouth of the opening there is banding, which you can sort of see in the pic if you click on it.