Wisconsin Agate Collectin Crawl

Thanks to Doug and Susan Moore for their hospitality last week.  Special thanks to Doug for organizing an agate collection tour for Sharon Smith and I.  We spent two days visiting rockhounds to see their incredible collections.  What fun!  Here are a few photos.

Every day you learn something new.  I had no idea there is a "subculture" of sand collectors.  One of the people we visited had 800 sand samples from all over the world.  It is amazing how different the sand varieties are in terms of color, texture, and mineral composition.

Dry head agate....

Incredible tube agate...

Weird agate...

Dino bone....

Nice agate that formed in rhyolitic matrix.  I don't remember for sure, but I think this specimen is Mexican.

Lake Superior thunder egg.

Mexican Laguna agate.

This is an awesome map created by one of Doug's friends.  It shows the hot spots resulting from plate tectonic movement -- which resulted in the creation of many agates and jaspers.

Fairburn agates...

Cool agate (I don't remember from where).

Laker...

Priday agate from Oregon.

Interesting Montana moss agate...

This agate was infilled with calcite.  Acids were used to remove the calcite from the half on the right.

Tube agate...

Fairburn agate from South Dakota...