A midsummer diversion, unedited

Still existing in the recovery zone

after an intense season digging in the river 

as well as a rock-star style travel schedule, I had one last trip on the itinerary for 2017: a visit to my dad in Kansas City, Missouri.  

I had been wanting to visit the area where the borders of Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa converge in order to hunt keokuk geodes.  The hunting grounds are a 4.5 hour drive from Kansas City but they also turned out to be a 4.5 hour drive from where my snowbird friend, Miss Vickie, spends her summers.  We arranged a little side trip for ourselves.  

The drive through rural Missouri

was very pretty and restful so the time passed quickly.

I met Vickie at a motel in tiny Keokuk, Iowa, and we got right to business.

By the way, the use of the adjective "tiny" is superfluous as ALL the cities in this area are tiny.

We weren't sure what our success rate would be on day 1

as we were just going to drive around and see if we could find access to creeks, 

so we had arranged to go to a geode "mine" in the area on day 2 where we would be guaranteed at least a couple of geodes for the effort.

We only scouted for about an hour before we came across a truck parked next to a path that accessed a nice, shallow creek.  We'd seen so many "No trespassing" signs that the lack of one on this path encouraged us.  We were just getting out of Vickie's van when the owner of the truck came up the path toting a bucket of little geodes.  He and his son were very helpful and informative although he told us the creek bank was steep and we would be better off going to an easier area "where all the kids hunt."  

He obviously doesn't know Vickie and me.

We grabbed our buckets and headed to the water.

The geodes are relatively easy to find and we ended up spending the whole day in that very short stretch of creek.

The completely unexpected side benefit

of the hunt was finding these nuggets of Devonian period lithostrotionella coral.

I've seen and admired photos of this coral and was thrilled to find my own samples.  The pieces in the photo still have some sand on them.  They cleaned up beautifully.

We could've filled Miss Vickie's van with geodes

but the heat and the chore of hauling buckets of rocks up the significant slope of the bank eventually wore me down.  I was determined to get all my rocks from the creek to the van because I'm stubborn that way but a very kind local man who was spending the day on the creek with his girlfriend helped Vickie with her buckets.  

This local became a story unto himself.  I never asked his name because I am cautious and suspicious by nature.  Vickie was much friendlier but I'm content to play the bad cop. 

The 4 of us shared real estate on the creek for hours and he ultimately asked if we would drive his "old lady" (I kid u not) to his house to grab their fishing poles and more beer.  Probably a good idea because he was noodling and not having much luck (my first time seeing someone noodle in the flesh).  Vickie was ok with driving the girl friend a short ways up the road and I opted to wait with my cell phone cued up to 911.  This short wait was when I learned this young man's story: 32 years old,  never owned a home, never finished school, no bank account, first child on the way with his girlfriend of 6 months who he admitted was a smoker and drinker "but her other 2 kids turned out ok".  Said he realized he needed to turn his life around. His dad had died in his early 40's of a heart attack after a long series of DUI'S in varying states.  

All this made me consider, as I often do,  how lucky I've been in so many ways but mostly in having 2 parents who,  while not perfect, were committed to parenting together and raising children that would have decent lives.  Thank you,  Mom and Dad.  

But back to the rocks...

Per the usual m.o., I had to seal my buckets and send them up to Wisconsin,

awaiting their eventually journey to Florida when Vickie and Jim return for the winter.  

I was concerned about sealing the buckets as the geodes were thickly coated with all manner of creek life, but Tom assured me over the phone that the best option was to secure and label my swag and soak everything in bleach when I finally got my hands on it again.

I did take a couple of geodes home

that were already broken and just laying in the creek.

They are beautiful and may contain up to 14 different minerals in addition to the ubiquitous quartz.  The quartz crystals may also be stained different tints by minerals in the matrix or water.

I was gung ho to put all mine on the slab saw but read that cutting them open might damage large interior crystals.  The best method is to use a soil pipe cutter.

Luckily, Tom can get his hands on one through his work contacts so when I get my geodes in the fall, I'll be ready!

Here's a little info about keokuk geodes from the geode gallery web page.  The site has wonderful photos and very detailed information about the minerals associated with these types of geodes.

Minerals in Keokuk Geodes (Primarily from the Warsaw Formation)

The following minerals have been positively identified as being in Keokuk geodes, as well as those previously published to exist or are currently under study.  The photos for each mineral are currently under construction, please check back from time-to-time to see new additions.

Quartz- Lines almost all geodes. Clear, smoky, sea-green, iron-stained (orange), and pink or cherry tinted geodes are found (see photos below).  Clear and iron-stained geodes are the most commonly seen type of quartz geode.  To date, research findings have not confirmed the presence of "citrine" geodes in the Keokuk, Iowa area.  All such samples have been identified as iron-stained geodes.  Citrine is considered by many geologists and gemologists to be rather uncommon or infrequent anywhere on Earth, and is considered by many in the gemological sector to be more uncommon than amethyst (Holden, 1999).  Many iron-stained Keokuk geodes can be cleaned with any iron-removing product or various acids.  In the samples where the orange/yellow coloring does not clean out, it was found that the samples had successive layers of quartz on top of existing iron-stained quartz, but due to the transparency of the quartz crystals, the orange color still showed through.  Many geode samples have also been identified with "rings" of pyrite in the geode rind, indicating successive growth stages of quartz, then pyrite, then quartz again, etc.  Research by Sinotte (1969) also labels all orange quartz geodes as iron-stained.  The iron-staining is caused by the weathering of various sulfide minerals, most notably pyrite but also marcasite, chalcopyrite, etc.   The term "citrine colored" quartz is appropriate when describing Keokuk geodes, but true "citrine geodes" do not occur in the Keokuk area.  The pink or cherry tinted geodes, if naturally occurring (recently, several so called "red quartz geodes" were made available but they were simply orange iron-stained geodes that had been baked in an oven to a certain temperature to turn the orange to a red color) are occasionally caused by a close association with the surrounding host rock or where the chalcedony lining contained excessive iron amounts and resulted in a more of a reddish tint in the geodes. These will also clean up unless having been under the process of weathering for an extended period of time or subsequent growths of quartz have overlaid the layers of red iron deposits. In other geodes, the faces of several quartz crystals are coated with a very weak pink to vivid red, and can be washed out easily, these are most likely associated with hematite (see hematite section below). At most locations where hematite is the reason for the reddish coloring, other geodes in the same exposure will have actual hematite crystals and geodes containing pink to red water have been collected at a few locations.

"Snowball" Geodes:  An interesting variety of mainly quartz geode that is well-known among Keokuk geode collectors is the "snowball" geode.  Sinotte (1969) apparently first coined the term, and while definitions vary as to the true definition of a "snowball" geode from collector to collector, the main requirement for a Keokuk geode to be labeled as a "snowball" geode is the presence (or at least former presence) of a silica concretion in the interior of the geode (Sinotte, 1969 - refer to pages 74-77) that was later coated over by quartz and sometimes additional minerals, forming an attached round ball of quartz to the interior of the geode cavity.  Objectively defined, if there is proof of a separate entity in the form of the silica concretion in the geode cavity, regardless of shape, separate from the lining of the geode to at least some degree, it is, by definition, a "snowball" geode.  Some samples are formed better than others and contain less connections to the quartz wall and a more pronounced "ball", but the basic definition is still present in the more poorly or better-developed specimens.  Several such samples have been collected that noticeably contain such "snowballs", but the interior silica/chalcedony (usually a white solid material that is commonly mislabeled as kaolinite due to its appearance) has since disappeared, leaving an open void except for the layer of quartz on the outside.   The author of this page has collected several samples and also studied several other samples where this has been observed.  Such a phenomena may indicate an instability in the former interior silica ball in relation to the surrounding quartz, and a dissolving of the silica may have occurred after the silica ball was coated with quartz.  Research is ongoing - if anyone else has samples that fit this description or a sound theory based on research studies related to this topic, please contact me with your observations/opinions or references to the process that may have occurred and if possible, pictures of the samples under study or in question.  Below are two geodes containing "snowballs" - the left geode shows a hollow snowball and the right is a regular, typical snowball.