White Geodes

When I was visiting the Horn-Eldred family last weekend, the end of my visit was punctuated with a much-anticipated geode smash. I have never had an unopened geode, much less participated in the process of breaking one open. Apparently this is something that Emma has done often, and each time she hopes for an interesting color other than white.

When Emma took a hammer and broke the stone open, it was indeed filled with white crystals. Although that's not what she'd hoped for, they're beautiful nonetheless. I was gifted with this part of the stone...

This entire experience got me to wondering... what gives a geode its color? The answer, I've found, is that it's the composition of minerals in the stone. Most are filled with white quartz. Sometimes you'll see brightly-colored geodes, but the brightness of color generally means it has been artificially colored. Certain minerals can contribute colors like blue, purple, pink or green but these are rare. You can read more about geodes on sciencing.com.