Geodes/ Rocks for Folks who are Lumpy on the Outside and Amazing on the Inside

• Geodes are spherical rocks packed with tiny hollows, crystals, and wonder.
• Geodes are diamonds for the rest of us.
• Geodes can cure depression (says MB) in adults who thought they weren’t captivatingly successful because they didn’t get rich, gorgeous, or famous - but then they became captivated by geodes. 
• Geodes crack up when creationists come around. 
• Geodes are kid bait for old people who want grandkids to come over. 
• If you are near when someone (maybe you?) is tapping at the side of a geode, or cutting into it with a diamond saw, or ratcheting a pipe cutter around it .. does that moment make your heart flutter? Opening geodes can be as exciting as new love waiting for a first kiss. 

Two weeks ago we visited our friend Otis, and his helper-friend David, in Warsaw, Illinois which is across the Mississippi River from Keokuk, Iowa. Did you know that Keokuk / Warsaw is a geode meccas? 

I knew because Otis has given me a few geodes over the years. He’d never hunted for them himself but his brother Mike lives adjacent to a former gravel quarry where geodes are plentiful. Mike gave some to Otis who gave some to me. 

When Len and I decided to visit Otis I asked if we could look for geodes and that is how this all happened. (For those who wonder where Len is in this story, he was fishing. We ate two Mississippi catfish that night.) 

Mike warned that one gets TO the geodes by hiking THROUGH tick infested poison ivy. Oh yeah. We wore old clothes, pants tucked inside socks, long sleeves, gloves, and hats and after that we sprayed on a layer of bug repellant. (When the jaunt was over we switched back to regular clothes, ferried the geode outfits back home in a closed bag, and did laundry immediately. This system worked.) Also, it was about 90 degrees that day. I got so steamy that I sort of became my own flan.

Our guide was a friend of Mike’s. Nick is knowledgeable about geodes and experienced at hunting for them. He also often gave a hand to Otis or me as we climbed up and down the hillocks, hummocks, piles, and rifts of loose and unstable gravel that ringed the quarry. Otis has Parkinsons, I’m merely old, and that terrain was pretty much some doctor’s next swimming pool just waiting to happen. 

It took five minutes to get through the gauntlet to the rocks. Then, quickly, geodes were everywhere! Round gray rocks that looked like petrified cauliflower. Small ones like mandarin oranges. Some big as baseballs. A few nearly the size of basketballs. 

Some had already cracked open, probably when driven over by the gravel company equipment of yore. Most were still roundish. Nick would pick up one to explain something and I’d patiently put out my hand and he’d eventually give it to me. My backpack ended up so heavy that Nick wore it for me as we ambled up and down those gravel rifts around the desolate quarry lake. We picked up rocks, sweated, chatted. Listened to Nick explain how the rusty hues on the outside indicated the possible color of crystals on the inside. Some geodes were filled in; when one opens them they are nearly solid with glittery crystals. Others have the evocative geode trademark “cave” inside the.

There’s a huge amount geode info online if you care to know a lot. Just google “geodes” and that rabbit hole will suck you in for hours. Ask me how I know. 

But what struck me was simply this. Earth’s geology around us looks eternal but, boy oh boy, it is not. Highways travel through a cut open terrain; you see the layers. Many of earth’s coolest travel destinations are places where we can see the layers of the earth such as the Grand Canyon or Badlands. 

Each layer tells us what was going on in that geologic era. Yet before it was the pale strata of rock we see now, each layer was zillions of years of plants, weather, animals, and more plants. Trees, daisies, birds, seaweed, mammoths. When and where the climate was warm, there was one kind of world. Where there were endless shallow seas there were different plants and animals. Sometimes ginormous volcanoes blew or meteorites exploded into the earth to send up overwhelming amounts of dust and riffraff that would obscure earth’s atmosphere for years, blocking sunlight, changing the climate again. Lightning struck, massive fires could decimate great swaths of earth. Glaciers, jungles, floods, deserts. The earth isn’t impermeable rock underneath us. Earth’s detritus slowly decays and then filters down into itself. Every single thing that grew or happened eventually collapsed and compacted under what came next. And yes, we are a future strata. 

Geodes are rocks that begin to form with a gaseous bubble in the middle. You know how if you leave uncooked meat too long the plastic around it begins to puff a bit from the gasses of the decaying meat? Yeah, like that.

Rock forms around the bubble. Groundwater trickles down, bringing various minerals with it. That water catches in the little hollows where the gas bubbles were a couple eons ago. The water slowly evaporates. Leftover minerals form crystals. And Bob’s your uncle.

There are other ways geodes are formed. See the afore mentioned geode rabbit holes. But this is how these geodes happened. And I got to pick them up off the ground, carry them until Nick carried them, watched as he cracked some open. Len shone a black light at the one. All geodes are old stories and everlasting beauty. 

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Geodes from the Keokuk area contain a variety of minerals, but quartz is dominant in most. Calcite is also a common and attractive mineral in many geodes, which occurs in a variety of crystal habits and colors. An additional seventeen minerals have been identified in Keokuk geodes. https://iowageologicalsurvey.uiowa.edu/iowa-geology/popular-interest/iowa-geodes

No other region in North America produces collectible geodes in this density. You can fill a 5-gallon bucket in an hour at most sites during the right season. https://rockhounding.org/rockhounding-articles/where-to-find-geodes-in-iowa