Calcite geode hunt
On a beautiful spring day in March 2020 I decided to go to a fairly unknown locality near the wonderful lake Balaton. This location produces interesting geodes which has the same effect on the collector as the Kinder chocolate egg on children: it’s a surprise when you find it and you get excited once again when you open it!
This occurance is near Balatonfüred, Hungary - a well-known vacation destination for tourists - but a couple of hundreds of meters before we’d reach the border of Balatonfüred from the East we must cross a railway at Balatonarács. Along the rails a small trail leads to a red sandstone mound which is wildly covered with trees and shrubs. This is the spot - a permian-triassic sedimentary geological section. The occurence consists of red permian sandstone and aleurolite which is covered by triassic grey aleurolite and sandstone which was covered by dolomite - the latter two layers has already eroded from this locality. The red sandstone contains 1-15 cm ooids usually lined by Calcite and/or Quartz on the inside and if the rockhound has a very fortunate day some Baryte may also be found inside.
Other rockhounds previously worked on the locality which was easy to spot: there was a big open „cavity” inside the mound where the best and most ooids could be found. Nobody was around to ask what’s what so I started collecting with my simple handtools: a geological hammer, a pickaxe and a shovel was more than enough. (Plus the PPE! Always wear personal protective equipment, kiddos! They make you as handsome as I am here!)
The sandstone tends to vary in hardness, some of it can be worked easily with a hammer, some of it can barely be removed by working hard with a pickaxe. Using a chisel is not an option here except for removing already spotted ooids from the wall. But you have to have eagle eyes searching in the removed parts of the sandstone as the geodes are usually pretty difficult to distinguish from simple debris. A couple of hours of work yielded tens of Calcite geodes up to 8 centimeters!
Eventually the rockhounds previously working on the locale returned just when I got all tired and was about to leave so we gladly swapped places. And just as you can see below my lucky stars - eventhough not bright enough to be seen in the sunlight - shined for me that day as I’ve found a small but amazing Baryte containing geode!
Some other also contained Baryte though with lesser quality and size. The Calcites don’t have isolated crystals, they tend to be aggregated in druze having dull or satin lustre but on uncommon occasions they have wonderful lustrous and bright surface. They are sometimes associated with translucent, small (couple of mm) double terminated beta-Quartz crystals. Sometimes Quartz creates beautiful flower-like shapes on the sandstone. But for me it always was about the rare and majestic bluish grey, transparent Baryte crystals sitting on top of the yellowish white Calcites. It’s the most delightful feeling when you crack a geode open and it contains just what you already wanted quite a few collecting trips ago… - given that the Baryte did not break! ;-)
If you are interested in a geode feel free to contact me through one of my addresses. Keep rockin’!
