Geodes Found in Utah

Sites

• The main location of geodes in Utah and the one with the principal deposits is in the Dugway Geode Beds, which are located about 50 miles along the Pony Express Road that runs west from the small town of Faust, itself about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Other locations are near Mount Carmel, a small town near Kanab on the Arizona border where geodes called Utah Septarians can be found, and Greasewood Draw near Green River where you can find geodes containing amethyst crystals, quartz crystals, scalenohedral calcite and pink celestite.

Formation

• Utah's geodes began forming 5 million years ago. Volcanic activity in the region deposited a rock called rhyolite. As the rock hardened and cooled, cavities formed around pockets of gas trapped within the rock. Over the years, mineral-bearing ground water seeped into the cavities, allowing crystals to grow inside the cavities. In the case of Dugway, the geodes were re-deposited some 14,000 to 20,000 years ago by Lake Bonneville, which eroded the rhyolite and re-deposited the geodes in their present location. Most geodes are between 2 and 3 inches in diameter.

Tools

• You'll need to take with you a pick and shovel, steel wedges, a 4-lb. hammer and a couple of large screwdrivers for prising the geodes from their surrounding material. Don't forget to take safety glasses and some protection for your arms and legs. In Dugway, geodes are beneath a layer of clay between 1 and 4 feet below the surface. In Greasewood, you'll find them on the lower flanks of the hills, and in Mount Carmel, you'll need to ask Ken and Nikki Caruso, the owners of the mine.

Restrictions

• Commercial collecting requires a permit, lease or license from the Bureau of Land Management. Some geode areas such as Mount Carmel have active mining claims, so you'll need to seek permission from the claim owners before digging. If you're a private collector, there's no restriction to removing reasonable numbers of geodes from federal lands, but you may not hunt for geodes in any national parks, national monuments, military reservations, dams, wildlife refuges or Indian reservations.