Swiss Cheese with Banding

[herb]

I had to move some buckets of rocks in the basement so the gas company could replace my gas meter today. It gave me a chance to look thru some buckets that I hadn't looked at in years. One bucket had a label that said "Red Jasper" but there was only one piece that was red jasper! The rest of the rocks looked like these. There seems to be 2 distinct types. One is a tan / cream color with wider banding and the other is a gray color with finer banding. Some of the holes / pockets are lined with quartz (I assume) crystals. Does any one recognize these or have any info? I wanted to hear what people have to say before I attempt to cut any of them. Not sure if I'm just going cut them open as specimens or slice them into slabs. Guess it depends on what I find after the 1st cut.

First the beige ones. This piece doesn't have as much banding but it shows the holey nature of the rough. Overview and a close up shown dry:
IMG_2230 by Shiny Objects, on Flickr

IMG_2233 by Shiny Objects, on Flickr

Next 2 pics show a piece with more banding. Shown dry and wet:
IMG_2240 by Shiny Objects, on Flickr

IMG_2241 by Shiny Objects, on Flickr

Finally a gray colored one. Looks a lot like crazy lace. Shown dry, wet, and then a closeup:
IMG_2242 by Shiny Objects, on Flickr

IMG_2243 by Shiny Objects, on Flickr

IMG_2244 by Shiny Objects, on Flickr

[fuss]

I cant help with the locality but those are some extremely weathered Agates.

[khara]

It almost would be cool to see the exteriors polished/tumbled while the big Swiss cheese holes remained rough. I’m not sure if it’s possible but it almost seems like it could work in a tumbler. Those holes are so big maybe they wouldn’t trap media and grit to cause scratches. Don’t know what they are though, sorry.

[velodromed]

Interesting rocks like that can turn out really cool if the ridge material is hard enough to tumble. Here’s one below, I believe it is a fossilized sponge or coral of sorts, which we have a lot around central Texas, the after tumbling pic and the before pic. I’ve done others and have them in my Texas rocks thread, under rock tumbling photos. I start them off in the rotary Tumbler, very carefully running them with 60/90 grit and other small rocks/ceramic media. Can’t really tumble them with big rocks, or it will beat the crud out of them. Once I have the ridges at a general smoothness, I threw them in the vibratory for however long it takes. Typically the ridges will shine up nicely if the materials hard enough. I’ll even get a slight shine to the valleys much of the time. Of course, if the rock is not hard enough or assembled well, it’ll simply fall apart. So when I get nice looking ones that fit that description, I save them for display rocks.

[skrapyard]

That reminds me a lot of the material that comes out of Missouri near Cadet. Ive done some digging in that area a few times and have a ton of it. The pieces that are on the surface look more weathered like yours. And when you get to digging you can find some nice pieces covered in quartz. Heres a couple examples of the stuff from there and some cabs I made from the agate in them.

[velodromed]

Aug 25, 2023 8:51:34 GMT -5 skrapyard said:

That reminds me a lot of the material that comes out of Missouri near Cadet. Ive done some digging in that area a few times and have a ton of it. The pieces that are on the surface look more weathered like yours. And when you get to digging you can find some nice pieces covered in quartz. Heres a couple examples of the stuff from there and some cabs I made from the agate in them.

Those are beautiful! Usually when I find the ones around here they are much smaller and covered with calcite or lime. I soak them in high strength vinegar for a while to get all the junk off then follow up with some limeaway. 

[herb]

Interesting idea to tumble them! The ones I pictured are too big though, about 5 to 7 inch as on a side. I do have some smaller pieces though. I'll take a look thru them to see if any look like potential tumble candidates.

Aug 25, 2023 6:04:38 GMT -5 velodromed said:

Interesting rocks like that can turn out really cool if the ridge material is hard enough to tumble. Here’s one below, I believe it is a fossilized sponge or coral of sorts, which we have a lot around central Texas, the after tumbling pic and the before pic. I’ve done others and have them in my Texas rocks thread, under rock tumbling photos. I start them off in the rotary Tumbler, very carefully running them with 60/90 grit and other small rocks/ceramic media. Can’t really tumble them with big rocks, or it will beat the crud out of them. Once I have the ridges at a general smoothness, I threw them in the vibratory for however long it takes. Typically the ridges will shine up nicely if the materials hard enough. I’ll even get a slight shine to the valleys much of the time. Of course, if the rock is not hard enough or assembled well, it’ll simply fall apart. So when I get nice looking ones that fit that description, I save them for display rocks.

[rmf]

That all looks like Missouri agate

[herb]

So I managed to find the time to take each of the pieces to the saw. Here are the results. These are all hot off the saw, so they are oil coated.

This is the 1st piece I showed, the really holey one, cut in half. It was even more Swiss cheese like than I anticipated! All the light brown areas voids that are filled with clay or sand like gunk. Looks like most of it would come out pretty easily. The dark brown / almost black areas are the bottom of the void. A few years ago I had an agate slice that had a few of these kinds of voids and after cleaning them out it made for some interesting cabs but I think there are too many voids here to be able to get a cab. I might take 1 slice and then just leave the halves as specimens.
IMG_2249 by Shiny Objects, on Flickr

Here is the 2nd piece, the one with more banding. This has more cabbing potential. Again all the brown areas are clay / sand that should come out fairly easily.
IMG_2246 by Shiny Objects, on Flickr

Finally, the 3rd piece, the one that had the crazy lace look to it. I think I will slice this one up completely. I really like the area on the right side of the last pic, but unfortunately there is a fracture ruining what could have been a pretty cool looking cab
IMG_2254 by Shiny Objects, on Flickr

IMG_2250 by Shiny Objects, on Flickr

IMG_2253 by Shiny Objects, on Flickr

[velodromed]

herb
Wow! Those turned out great. I need to look for bigger ones in this area and try that. Thanks for showing!