Geodes were made to be cracked open!

Thank God for discovery, the beauty and awesomeness of nature.  Pleasant surprises are one of life’s great joys, like what you can find within a geode.  They make life a heck of a lot more interesting, as in “CYO” geodes, or “crack your own!” On the outside they just look like any old ordinary rock you would find on the ground.  But inside lurks a beautiful surprise!

A geode is a hollow rock with a cavity containing crystals growing inward, formed around a gas bubble in lava flow. The most common geodes contain white quartz or calcite crystals. Geodes are also sometimes created as rounded cavities in sedimentary formation. Typically, the outside of a geode is limestone. Other colored crystals found in geodes are purple amethyst, blue celestite and pink or brown dolomite.  Sometimes they have agate and jasper layers of banding.

Carneilan Geode Sphere

When a geode is solid all the way through it is called a nodule.  The thunder egg is the Oregon state rock and a good example of a nodule.  We’ve sold many a thunder egg at The Fossil Cartel and have seen so many beauties, each is one of a kind!  The insides of thunder eggs are often filled with blue agate and white common opal.  Many resemble a midnight ocean scene, with blue agate as the ocean and white opal as the moon. A great curiosity to me is how many thunder eggs feature a star-like formation framing the internal agate.

Thunder Eggs

CYO geodes make great holiday gifts, especially for kids.  My own kids and I had a blast cracking ours.  If you’d like to try your hand at it, here are three good ways crack open a geode.

1. Score the geode first: using a flat-head screwdriver (or cold chisel) and a hammer, make a line of marks around the center of the geode by tapping lightly. Place the geode in an old sock and tap lightly with a hammer, increasing the strength of taps until the geode cracks open.
2. Find a “nook” in your geode. Place a flat-head screwdriver or cold chisel into the “nook” and give it a good whack with your hammer. An old sock helps the pieces from flying across the room. This method may take a few tries.
3. Just smash the whole thing with a hammer. It’s probably not going to break into 2 nice halves, but sometimes you just can’t wait to see the beauty inside.

Enjoy the element of surprise and the hidden beauty of nature by cracking your very own geodes!