Texas Lone Star Collections

Botryoidal chalcedony from Topaz Mountain, Utah is a textbook example.
6 million years ago, gas bubbles in cooling rhyolite left cavities. Silica-rich fluids later filled them layer by layer, creating these bubbly agate formations.
The host rock is famous for topaz + red beryl, but the secondary minerals are just as wild. ( got plenty of that too !)

RUCKS CLAM - Pulled this fossil clam out of the dirt at Ruck’s Pit. Cleaned it up, hit it with the polisher, and now we’ve got a 1.5-million-year-old nightlight.
Nature did the crystals. I just gave it a glow-up.

RUCKS CLAM- Pulled this fossil clam out of the dirt at Ruck’s Pit. Cleaned it up, hit it with the polisher, and now we’ve got a 1.5-million-year-old nightlight.
Nature did the crystals. I just gave it a glow-up.

WAVELLITE - Nature really said “green grapes” and meant it 🍇✨
Found this wavellite in Arkansas — those spheres are called botryoidal growth and they form in fractures of quartzite and shale. This piece is small but the color is unreal when the light hits it.
Anyone else obsessed with green minerals?

Arizona Apache Tear in Perlite Matrix
• Size: Matrix specimen w/ prominent nodule
• Locality: Arizona, USA
• Details: Glassy black obsidian tear naturally embedded in white perlite. Great contrast + texture .
• Display: Mounted on acrylic stand
Apache Tears are a form of obsidian said to bring comfort during grief. This one’s a stunner for any mineral shelf.
DM for info 🖤

Want

Central Texas geology hits different 🌞
Found this Pyrite Sun ! ( by the bucket )
It’s a pseudomorph: started as radiating blades of marcasite in Cretaceous-age shale, then converted to pyrite over millions of years. Same FeS_2 formula, different crystal structure.
One side is that lumpy botryoidal pyrite. Flip it and you get the perfect sunburst from the original marcasite. The red staining is iron oxide from our Texas clay and shale.
People chase these from Illinois, but turns out the Hill Country has its own hidden gems.

Molten Bismuth → real-life geometry glitch.
Nature’s doing the most, and I’m here for it.

Big, flashy muscovite mica specimen 💎
Roughly palm-sized, killer golden color with that classic pearly luster. Sheets are thick and peel beautifully if you’re into that.
DM if you want to add some sparkle to your collection..

( LAZURITE )Y’all… I’m still buzzing from this one.
Spent the day picking through the dumps at Blanchard Mine and pulled out this stunner.
That is NOT azurite.
It’s lazurite — the crystal form of the stuff that makes lapis lazuli blue. Blanchard is the US locality for it, and it’s been closed to collecting for years.
So finding sharp blue lazurite crystals on quartz, with that electric green malachite accent? Yeah. That’s a lifetime piece.
Pictures don’t even capture it. In hand, that blue glows. There’s a couple tiny pyrite specks in there too if you catch the light right.
NM rockhounds know: Blanchard blues hit different. 💙
Self-collected, Socorro County, NM
Who else has dug lazurite? Drop your Blanchard stories below. #