Showing posts with label wyoming geological survey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wyoming geological survey. Show all posts

Monday, June 15, 2020

A WYOMING MYSTERY!

Both polished and unpolished Sweetwater agates found in the
northern Granite Mountains recovered by Wayne Sutherland
 and the GemHunter.
To this day, it is a mystery!

Some years ago, my field assistant and I were driving along the northern edge of the Granite Mountains in central Wyoming, on a poorly used two-track trail that looked as if the last person to use it was Ward Bond with his Wagon Train. Wayne and I had been drinking coffee all morning, and made a pit stop. We climbed out of the off-road truck rented from the University of Wyoming (we were working on a gemstone project for the Wyoming Geological Survey) and decided to water down some sagebrush. I looked down, and saw a Sweetwater agate! 

Wow, as I looked closer, there were more and more and more. But what was so unusual about these gems is that more than half of the treasure had been tumbled in a rock tumbler and dumped here in the middle of no where! I kid you not, Ward Bond had seen better roads than this one. 

Mysterious Agates
The Sweetwater agate is almost a precious stone in Wyoming. It is very popular, so most people don't polish them and throw them out in the middle of nowhere. So, we started wondering whose wife got mad and threw these gems out the window of their 4x4, or from the back of a covered wagon. It is a mystery.

Not to long after we found these, I explored and identified the Cedar Rim opal field, where I found some of the source rocks of Sweetwater agates along the northwestern flank of the Granite Mountains.

What a mystery, but it is just one of many such geology mysteries in Wyoming.

Some of the beautiful agates (and obsidian) found in the northern Granite Mountains of
Wyoming by Wayne and myself.


So, what does the Bible say about Agate??

The Granite Mountains location in central Wyoming


Polished Sweetwater agate found on very old
abandoned wagon trail in the Granite Mountains.

Beautiful Sweetwater agate from the
Granite Mountains, found along an abandoned
wagon trail last used by Ward Bond.