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Dwarves' Earth Treasures Museum:
Bear Mountain Thundereggs
Bear Mountain, Silver City, Grant Co., New Mexico

pic   The thundereggs of the Bear Mountain are known for many decades and widely visited by local rock clubs, but they still can be found even today despite the complains by local rockhounds about not finding anything except small ones. The Bear Mountains along edge of Gila National Forest, are mainly limestone with a very hard limestone sticking out like a sore thumb on one side and there are isolated pockets of rhyolitic lava flows, the source of thundereggs. I hit on a strata enriched in the thundereggs on March 2004 and found many thundereggs containing rare sagenite needles (after zeolites), aragonite fans, black calcite crystals, waterline agates, and some with shadowing effect. The colors of the agates are typically colorless to bluish gray, and some white and rarely brownish agates have been found. I obtained few "freak" thundereggs with peach to yellow colored agates.
    I came back to it two years later, but did not had any luck with digging, and that was when I realized that I passed the narrow strata. That strata was buried under so much tailings left by inexperienced diggers, and it's going to take a lot of work to uncover that strata. The agate in the thundereggs are typically colorless to blue with some white colors. It's rare to find those with brown colors and those with shadowing effects are even rarer.  I have seen excellent amethyst geodes and agates with shadowing effects from that area.

As of Jan 2022, it's on Gila National Forest so rocks can be collected only for hobby purposes as according to this link:
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Rough Appearance: Brown thundereggs with bubbly surfaces, ridges rarely showing
Agates are mostly clear with some faint banding, come in white to gray colors sometimes with blue to purple tints.
A percentage of thundereggs will have sagenite inclusions

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Brownish color with shadowing effect
March 2004
With Aragonite fans
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Sagentite type
Sagenite type,
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Moss structures, March 2004 "Cave View of the Ocean", March 2004
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Interesting color combo
and waterline agate. March 2007
Typcal banded agate
March 2004
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Rare brownish color. March 2004 Interesting structure...
March 2008
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Black sagenite inclusions
March 2006
With strong shadowing effect, March 2008
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Outstanding needle-like sagenite agate
March 2008
Very few Bear Mtn thundereggs come with some colors.
with sagenite inclusions
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Very few Bear Mtn thundereggs come with some colors.
with sagenite inclusions
colored sagenite type
March 2008


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