Lets talk Indiana Geodes

[gunworks321]

When you get a date I'm in.

 

[dangar]

I heard back from Samot, the INGO member that made the offer three years ago. He no longer owns the property with the gravel pit. Good hunting everyone.

 

[Mgderf]

Now i know you will get in a lot of trouble if you take them out of the woods. I had to pay a fairly large fine.

What woods? Why would you "Get in trouble" and with whom?

 

[Clay]

What woods? Why would you "Get in trouble" and with whom?

I asked the same question with no response.

 

[1861navy]

Strange about getting in trouble, never happened to me, I know in Morgan Monroe it's legal to surface hunt for fossils and things. People also gold pan there too, with a permit.
Those Indian beads are everywhere there, along with geodes out the wazoo.
As for where they came from and arrived in Indiana, along with gold. Essentially they were carried by the glaciers during the last ice age. Anywhere there are geodes in Indiana there is more than likely to be glacial gold as well. A Google search with the terms gold in Indiana should provide a result in PDF format from the early 1900's on the subject. It was a report done by a fella going to IU I believe. A very informative piece.

 

[prepgal]

I'd love to come for a look around samot

 

[Sasquatchhunter]

alright here goes:

Geodes are very interesting rocks to me due to the way that they were formed thousands of years ago. Limestone goes hand in hand with geodes, basically limestone is a geode's father. Huge tracts of limestone are fairly porous and inside the pores is where the geode grew. Yes, thats right. Each geode you'll find grew inside of stone, much like bacteria in an agar, or mold inside a jar. The quartz/water grew into more quartz crystals and more crystals until there eventually was no room left inside the limestone cavity, so essentially when you look at a geode you're seeing the mold of the cavity that the geode grew in. Some are big, some small, some pancake shaped, etc.

Fast forward a few thousand years, the rock erodes or breaks up, and out falls the geode. Due to the quartz content, it is a lot harder and more compressed than the rock it formed in and came from, so it is not susceptible to erosion, so when the "mother" rock it came from breaks up, the geode is "born" so to speak.

They are found in creek beds as they've washed down out of the limestone hills, those found in fields or not around limestone have been scooted there by glaciers, or washed there by erosion.

As for the water being found inside some geodes, this is what first started the growth of the geode. Very fascinating. We are lucky to have such specimens in this little part of the world we live in, exclusively.

This all being said, I would encourage folks to not break every one they come across, or break dozens at a time. Knowing what all the geode went through to get to where it is today will hopefully squelch the temptation to break them open. Now i broke open my fair share as a child, but today I do not. I just think they're too ancient and too darn cool to be cracking open with a hammer in 2013.

 

[commonality]

I'm definitely going to have to try geode hunting. Great thread!

 

[chraland51]

Where did you hear that geodes were brought here by the glaciers? Someone was pulling your leg pretty hard or trying to mislead you with incorrect information. Most of the rocks brought in by the glaciers are igneous in origin with some metamorphic. Very little of the sedimentary materials survive the very rough transport in the ice. A long time ago when the glaciers were still receding out of Indiana leaving their loads behind and I was at IU studying geology, I learned that geodes were likely formed in a calcareous ooze and formed as the likely result of a gas bubble caused by the decay of a piece of organic matter. The main material of a geode is chalcedony which is a cryptocrystalline form of quartz SiO2 (silica dioxide) quartz. There can be other minerals in geodes which would be determined by what happened to be moving through the ooze before it lithified and turned into what you find today. Most, if not all, of the geodes that you find in the Mitchell plain physiographic region of the state have weathered out of the less durable and less weather resistant carbonate lithologies that make up the bedrock of the area. In the days since I left the campus to search out my fortune, the geologists might have changed, modified or refined their opinions on the processes that form geodes, but I do not think that any of those would include being brought down from Canada.

 

[1861navy]

Where did you hear that geodes were brought here by the glaciers? Someone was pulling your leg pretty hard or trying to mislead you with incorrect information. Most of the rocks brought in by the glaciers are igneous in origin with some metamorphic. Very little of the sedimentary materials survive the very rough transport in the ice. A long time ago when the glaciers were still receding out of Indiana leaving their loads behind and I was at IU studying geology, I learned that geodes were likely formed in a calcareous ooze and formed as the likely result of a gas bubble caused by the decay of a piece of organic matter. The main material of a geode is chalcedony which is a cryptocrystalline form of quartz SiO2 (silica dioxide) quartz. There can be other minerals in geodes which would be determined by what happened to be moving through the ooze before it lithified and turned into what you find today. Most, if not all, of the geodes that you find in the Mitchell plain physiographic region of the state have weathered out of the less durable and less weather resistant carbonate lithologies that make up the bedrock of the area. In the days since I left the campus to search out my fortune, the geologists might have changed, modified or refined their opinions on the processes that form geodes, but I do not think that any of those would include being brought down from Canada.

No offense, but if you would have done a google search with the terms "gold and diamonds in Indiana" ,like I had stated, you would have found the pdf on IUs own website titled gold and diamonds in Indiana. It was written by W.S. Blatchley.
REDIRECT bitstream/ handle/ 2022/ 6834.pdf
Then the third search result would have been from the indiana geological survey's own site, which is a copy of the previous pdf from IU scholarworks. In which it explains how geodes are formed, heck just ask the Indiana gold prospectors association. They clearly explain the formation of geodes. BTW the work was written at the turn of the 1900's. I highly doubt that someone over 100 years ago published a work at IU geology dept. that is still referenced by IGS just to pull a few legs. I am not saying you're wrong, geodes may be formed by many geologic processes, or one. Either way I just gave the two/three sources that I had, as you would have seen had you searched yourself.

 

[Sasquatchhunter]

I figured someone would be along to pick apart my "off the top of my head" geode post. I figured they were moved to open areas and fields by either glacier run or washed there.

Also to the person who posted about porches and silos being made of geodes, in my hometown of Salem, there are several standing silos, front porches, mailboxes, you name it. My grandma used to have a whole flower bed lined with the things. It's weird to see them online for 50-75 bucks!

 

[KDW77]

I know where there is a creekbed on Hoosier National forest where they are stacked deep.

 

[xcalibur]

These are Lawrence and Monroe county area geodes. Our family has been hunting them for a couple generations. I believe it is not legal to take them from state owned land, but are fair game on private property. A couple of them weigh well over 200 lbs maybe 300 lbs.

My youngest gives you a better idea of the size.(not the biggest)

My EDC is 9 inches open.

This behemoth is located in Brown county.... Nashville.

 

[PistolBob]

Uhh, dont know the scientific name for indian beads, but the way i understand it is they are fossilized plant stems, the indians would bore the centers out to make necklaces ???? Ive always called them indian beads

They are fossilized Crinoids. These plants were typically found in wet areas.

 

[nocash84]

Thanks for the cool pictures!

 

[gungirl65]

This is where I have put most of my geodes. You may be able to see the bigger one but there are also some smaller ones cast about in the area. The giant rock fountain is not a geode. I forget what it is.

 

[Hkindiana]

I found about a hundred golf ball sized geodes in a cache on a native American campsite. They had gathered them together for something.

 

[IndyGunworks]

for a short while longer the shores of lake Cumberland in Kentucky are FULL of them. the water is about 30 feet down due to work on the dam but its on its way back up and they will only be there for a short while longer. most are around softball size and they are literally in the thousands on small sections of shore. I don't know if you are allowed to take them or not though so do so at your own risk.

 

[TheRude1]

Im game. Im sure Rellichound and other member would LOVE to come to your place. Find a Geode the size of a basket ball? IM THERE!

I got one about the size of a football
Glad to show you any time, have tons of nifty stuff in my yard and hill by the creek. A glazier moved threw my place a couple years ago and dumped a ton of stuff off

 

[Dewidmt]

They are fossilized Crinoids. These plants were typically found in wet areas.

Crinoids are not plants, they are animals. Believe it or not they still exist today in the ocean. They are related to starfish. There are plenty of fossil beds and geode sites down here in Washington Co.