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Snowball/Surprise Agates
Medonas Dune Field, Chihuahua State, Mexico
   They look like miniature version of "Mexican Coconuts" with more colorful agates in them. Most are hollow geodes containing pinkish psuedomorphs after calcite and barite(?). Some nodules contain agates in a range of colors and fine bandings that they can be confused as Laguna agates. Based on the studies of the Mexican Coconuts, I have came to believe that they may be actually the weathered agate cores of fully expanded thundereggs and the rhyolite shells still attached to the Trancas Geodes and Mexican Coconuts provided some good evidence on that idea. They tend to be small and come in quite a wide range of colors comparable to the other Mexican agates. It's noted that Snowball and Surprise agates refer to the nodules coming from the same location, however, it's possible that there are several different deposits in close proximity to each other which would explain the pinkish geodes mixed in with those showing bluish agate on the surface.

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Rough Appearance: Looks like "Mini-Mexican Coconuts" with multiple ridges and "squashed look"
Blue-skinned agates tend to contain colorful banded agates
Pink skinned tend to be geodes with barite & quartz psuedomorphs

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Most nodules will produce this type of geode with psuedomorph crystals
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Laguna-like agate
Pink to red colors
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Apparently greenish hue, a rare color
Tan-orange color with dried white mud
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Sprays of psuedomoprh crystals (pink skinned)
Brown colors
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Pink to red
Psuedomoprhs with agate filling in the gaps
Think of Polyhedroid Agates...
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Red pseudomoprhs in the centers
A clue to the genesis of agates
Larger the snowball agates are, scarcer they will become.
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Rhyolite shells! That classifies them as thundereggs.
Whoa, strong red colors and big too!
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More typical colors but large size
A slab from an old collection showing
sharp banding and psuedomoprhs
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Unusually large and colorful agate
Typical colors of any large Snowball agates


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