1 Out at ESP, I decided to go up a creek to search for large geodes
2 Donna T, and Carol P hunting at ESP for geodes, Warsaw IL
3 Carol, Donna, and I going down the hill at Geode Glen Park, I did not take the camera down the hill.
4 The McRocks group digging at Jacob's geode mine Hamilton IL
5 The whole group finding some great geodes
6 The spot I picked out to hunt, note the small talus pile, this is the start of what will end up being a HUGE pile, also geodes on ledge to my left will increase as well.
7 Virgil and I working the shelf.
8 Everybody busy filling their buckets.
9 Virgil and I have worked about 24 inches of the top brown shale off the shelf working down into the grey shale and unweathered geodes.
10 As you can see by this photo, tailing pile is getting larger, along with geode pile. Hey Virgil, what was that about geo-picks?
11 Geodes are stacking up now.
12 Carol looking to see what is going on over at the other side of the mine. "Yep,
Everett always finds the best place, had to l..." View Comments...
13 Rich and Bill adding to the tailing pile accumulating around the exposed wall.
14 Jim posing for the camera. "...and my but..." View Comments...
15 My digging area after I was finished. I ended up with two 5 gal buckets full of geodes from this locale. Yet to be determined what is inside them. Tailing pile was very tall. "...and my but again....lol" View Comments...
16 Everybody filling everybody elses buckets to make sure they were all flowing over with geodes.
17 Packing up for the trip back down the hill, special thanks to Virgil for allowing everybody put their buckets in the DWS rockhound wagon for the trip across the creek.
18 Bill and Rich, I don't think they had enough of this place, still hunting till the end...still finding geodes "...not my butt that time...." "...that would be my butt..." View Comments...
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22 Geodes exposed in wall at Jacob's geode mine Hamilton, Hamilton Co, IL.
23 You know your having a great geode trip when you have to put buckets of geodes between your legs in order to get everybody and their finds into your truck.
24 Area C 61 parking spot
25 Looking across the top of Area C 61
26 Looking the other direction at Area C 61
27 Donna finding some geodes and enjoying the dig.
28 Virgil and the Black hole pocket
29 Another view of the black hole pocket. This vug/geode was close to 18-20 inches across.
30 Jim's moster vug/geode he was able to liberate from the hard tan shale.
31 Floyd and his first of two monster museum calcite geodes.
32 number two monster calcite.
33 left to right: Donna Templeton, Everett Harrington, Carol Poole (white shirt), Rich Ewick (white hat), Virgil "Richard Nixon" Richards, Floyd Speck (blue shirt), Bill Clark, Cori Nelson, and Jim Ericson (Jim E)not in photo Celia Harrington (somebody has to take the photos). I could not have had a better group to dig with, I'm honored to have met and dug with each and every one of you! "Man this was a great group! It was like old friends r..." View Comments...
34 Area C 61 geode poker chip calcites to 2 inches geode is 16 inches across
35 Same geode as #31 under UV light
36 14 inch geode from Area C 61
37 Huge 2 1/2 inch calcite crystals from Area C 61
38 Above geode under SW UV
39 8 inch geode with brown poker chip calcites
40 Large geode section full of calcites
41 part of the take
42 more of the geodes found Iowa 2006
43 large Area C 61 geodes
44 nice cluster of sphalerite crystals from Geode Glen Park IL
45 different view of above specimen
46 Sphalerite with marcasite crystals coating faces.
47 another view of #43
48 Spalerite on matrix with marcasite crystal coating
