Sam's Mineral / Fossil Showcase

A large polished display half agate with beautiful colors and interesting patterns. Origin not known.

#229: Miscellaneous thunder eggs from Oregon.

#606: This is a very mysterious piece that resides in one of our yard rock gardens. I believe it is botryoidal quartz clusters on agate matrix. The agate is barely visible in a couple of places. Origin not known.

#218: A large 54g thunderegg from Pujang, China. Nice color (more peach colored than shown in photos) and features.
This type of agate is often referred to as the Chinese Fighting Agate.

#557: I normally don't care for treated specimens but the aesthetic shapes and intense colors of this cobalt quartz fascinate me. This is a natural quartz that has been heat infused with rare metals to produce the beautiful colors.

#422: A very nice colorful scene of clouds and waterlines in this thunder egg from the Priday Blue Bed, Richardson Ranch, Oregon.

#338: Multiple ice-like calcite formations on a druzy chalcedony matrix. This piece is from India and the druzy on the matrix is more a pinkish/peach color that shown in photos.

#0016: A large half polished agate with great colors and interesting features.

#1227: A large collection of beautifully terminated Apophylllite crystals from India. Perfect cubes, rectangles, cylinders, hexagon and octagon shapes, and many oddly shaped crystals. Sparkling crystals of varying sizes on this fascinating specimen from Maharashtra state, India.

#216: A really nice double chamber thunder egg half from Oregon. Great color!

#303: This beautiful burgundy, purple and gold specimen was obtained with a note indicating: Fluorite, Cave In Rock, Illinois, 1887, L V Martindale. It was found in a very old box in an estate sale. Cave-In-Rock was not only famous for spectacular Fluorite that was mined there but also had a wild history of harboring outlaws. A quick Google search will detail the fascinating history of this cave on the Ohio river.
The feature that makes this specimen unique is that the purple and gold colors seem to blend together. Typically Cave-In-Rock pieces have more abrupt and defined color changes (referred to as zoning), Research also indicates that this piece was originally collected from the cave in the early fluorite exploration days and adds validity to the 1877 date.

A very nice specimen of a petrified wood limb cast from the Eden Valley, Sweetwater County, Wyoming. Some areas are spectacular rich blue color.

#1117: A splendid, colorful Puma thunder egg half from Argentina. Great color and interesting patterns.
Definition: A thunder egg is a geological formation that forms within volcanic rocks. It is basically a cavity within volcanic rock that is lined with various minerals, often including agate, chalcedony, quartz, or jasper. The formation begins when gas bubbles or voids are present in the volcanic rock. Over time, these voids can become filled with minerals from the water flowing through the rock. As these minerals accumulate, they form layers, creating the banded patterned appearance often seen in thunder eggs. They are normally cut in half and polished to bring out the colors and patterns.

#228: A nice specimen of pyrite from Elba, Italy. Great golden color with many interlocked and twinned crystals. Pyrite is commonly referred to as “fool’s gold”.

#505: A nice shiny specimen of Selenite from the area of Gloss Mountain State Park in Oklahoma. This was self collected on a recent trip and shows some of the iron-rich red Oklahoma soil. I'm always amazed by the sparkle from the Selenite as we drive through that area.

#331: Another very nice specimen from Cave in Rock, Hardin County, Illinois exhibiting intense colors of purple, lavender, blue and gold and the stepped growth patterns that are common with fluorite from this location. Many of the cubes show what appears to be fractures but the consensus is that this is natural incomplete development of the cubes. This is the only Hardin County piece I have seen with this attribute. The cubes also have inclusions of white and black material which is also not common with Illinois fluorite.

#447: A very rare chlorite coated Stilbite cluster from Nasik district, Maharashtra, India. A unique specimen that I have not seen anywhere else.

#984: Another nice specimen of fluorite from Cave-in-Rock, Hardin County, Illinois. Great colors of gold, blue and purple and the typical stepped growth patterns and very defined color zoning.

#774: A vintage specimen of agatized coral from the coast of California. Agatized Coral is formed by the silica replacement of the original calcium carbonate skeleton of a coral structure. This process creates beautiful fossil specimens with cave-like appearances and can result in interesting colors and patterns.

#1108: A large and brilliant specimen of opalized petrified wood. Spectacular colors of brown, yellow, gold, orange, red, maroon…splashes of white and black. Very interesting wood patterns. This is a rare piece of museum quality petrified wood. The date and location of collection is not known.

#588: A spectacular agate slice. Great colors and patterns! There are multiple shades of purple, blue and gold. This is photographed dry and the colors are more vivid when wet.

#773: An unusual and somewhat rare spray of Vivianite crystals from the Late Pleistocene swamp deposits near Clarens, South Africa. This specimen is from an old collection in New Mexico.

#1446: Another spectacular specimen from Maharashtra state India. There are many sharp terminated apophyllite crystals and many double terminated apophyllite crystals. The piece is enhanced by peach colored stilbite on a chalcedony matrix.

#1043: A very nice specimen of green Zincite - a rather rare mineral that has been found at only one location in the United States - the Franklin and Sterling mines in Sussex County, New Jersey. Zincite is found in the colors red, orange, yellow, white and rarely green.

#2103: This may be the “cream of the crop” in my collection. A stunning multi-mineral mounted specimen that is best appreciated by viewing at magnification. The locale of this amazing specimen is not known The minerals I can possibly identify: bright red fluorite, purple fluorite, clear fluorite, silver or gray fluorite, light blue fluorite, gold fluorite or calcite, white and clear calcite, hematite druse (deep rust/maroon coating on crystals), barite druse (tan and/or gold coating on crystals) and others that I am not qualified to identify (possibly barite, orthoclase, chalcedony, hematite, quartz and dolomite). It is extemely rare to find so many colors of fluorite on a single piece. I am including about 50 photos to help with identifications and many are at magnifications of 10X to 30X. This is a really fascinating and unusual specimen! If anyone could help with further identification it would be greatly appreciated.

Beautifully cut and polished Ametrine points. Ametrine is a natural combination of amethyst (lilac, purple) and Citrine (gold, yellow, orange) from the Anahi mine in southeastern Bolivia.

#1404: A beautiful specimen of deep, rich purple and blue fluorite from Balockistan, Pakistan. Very interesting tight fluorite formations in contrast to other fluorite I have displayed.

#1017: A HUGE 22 pound piece of nearly solid fluorite from the famous and now closed Cave-in-Rock mines in Hardin County, Illinois. This incredible specimen was found at a parts shop in Amarillo, Texas in 1997. The owner told me that he purchased the business in 1953 and it was on the shelf at that time with some other mineral specimens. He indicated that he was told that it was owned by one of the original miners from Cave-in-Rock. So many colors displayed…many shades of purple from lavender to deep, rich dark purple, gold, yellow, blue and even clear! Many of the cubes contain inclusions. This splendid piece shows many of the highly desired Illinois fluorite characteristics: the stepped growth patterns, intergrown cubes, twinned cubes, internal color zoning, etc. This one is a real treasure!!!

#441: A large sparkling quartz geode that was collected around 40 years ago in Kentucky. The two pieces of the geode fit together perfectly with no damage from digging or splitting. A beautiful display specimen.

#288: Gary Green Larsonite, also known as "petrified bog wood" is a form of petrified wood from a location near McDermitt Oregon, on the Nevada/Oregon border. It's believed to be wood that was covered by volcanic activity 11-15 million years ago. The volcanic ash and lava covered this area in debris that deprived the plants of oxygen, stoping the process of decay. The minerals from the volcanic ash then acted as the replacement material for the petrification/mineralization, giving the wood these vibrant green/blue colors.