architectonica perspectiva

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Photo of a sea snail tucked into its shell, which lays on its side on underwater sand. The snail’s shell has a spiral shape with stripes of white, brown, and cream, plus one stripe which has alternating spots of brown and cream. The snail’s feelers can be seen sticking out from the bottom of the shell; they’re striped too, just like the shell.

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My Geode Dig in Missouri

I have been planning a geode dig in Kahoka, Missouri for about a year and a half! It was something my mom and I wanted to do together. It finally happened this week and I wanted to share my experience.

First of all, geode digging is pretty much like being in the Shia LaBeouf movie “Holes”. It’s only going to be fun if you are a rock nerd. My sister tagged along and though she found the most geodes, she had the least fun. I made sure to pay for her entry so I didn’t hear complaining, lol.

We went to Sheffler Rock Shop, just outside Alexandria, Missouri. It’s $25 per person over 12 years old, you bring your own tools and buckets, and he takes you to the dig spot and you just go at it.

Our first few hours weren’t so great, but once the owner got the rest of the reservations checked in, he came over to help us find good spots. With Mr. Tim’s tips, we filled a 5 gallon bucket within an hour!

The key was to look on the ground for tiny geodes that the rain wash had revealed. Then we started digging above shale and found bigger geodes varying in sizes from golf ball, small potato, to softball size.

The best technique was to dig with the spade side of my pickaxe, and then salad chop the dirt and listen/feel for a hard tink! sound. That would be a geode. You grab the geode and throw it in the bucket. One cool moment was when my mom used her shovel and with one scoop dug up 6 softball size geodes. We were all cheering.

It was a good bonding experience with my mom, baby sis, and brother in law. My BIL isn’t a good mineral hunter, he had SO MANY geodes right under his nose that he didn’t see. And he had a big ass geode, didn’t check it, and threw it into a puddle where it disappeared. They didn’t tell me about the puddle until after we got back because they knew I would have killed him with my pick axe 😂

The Tri-State Region of Southeastern Iowa, Northeastern Missouri, and Western Illinois has a shelf full of geodes. Most of the geodes are derived from the lower Warsaw Formation, a widespread rock unit of Mississippian age. Calcium carbonate and clay muds deposited in a shallow sea about 340 million years ago were subsequently lithified to form the shales, shaley dolomites, and limestones. Geodes can be dug out of exposures of the lower Warsaw Formation where they are concentrated in certain layers. Loose geodes can also be collected in stream channels where water has eroded the rock.

Will post photos of my geode collection whenever I manage to clean up a few or break open some geodes! They’ll also be available in my shop.

I have a clear quartz dig planned at the end of the summer, and my mom and I are planning other mineral hunts across the country. I am hooked on mineral hunting!!!