Three claims, one hillside, and the names tell you these were dug by people rather than companies. The USGS records Smoky Blue, Little Smaky and Lavish Lady, all in Crook County, Oregon, all listed with gemstone as the primary commodity, and all in the same square mile of section 31. Lavish Lady is logged as a producer, Smoky Blue as a past producer. The same person, Taber Hall, is named as owner of the group, with the Lavish Lady entry dated 1991.
They sit on Ochoco National Forest land, and the paperwork behind them is not federal mining reports but Oregon state mined-land reclamation files, which is exactly the scale of operation this is: small claims worked seasonally, filed with the state department of geology, dug for one thing only.
That thing is the thunderegg, a nodule-like rock that forms inside rhyolitic volcanic ash layers. Most are about the size of a baseball, though they run from a little over a centimetre to more than a metre across. Inside, they usually carry a centre of chalcedony, often fractured and then filled again with agate, jasper or opal, singly or in combination, and sometimes quartz or gypsum crystals as well. From the outside they look like ordinary rocks. You find out by slicing one in half and polishing the face, and the patterns that come up are the whole reason people dig them. Beds differ from one another, though eggs from the same bed tend to share a family look.
Oregon made the thunderegg its state rock.
These are claims, not a public collecting area. Ownership on ground like this changes hands, and a claim that was open to fee digging one season may not be the next. Check who holds it now before making the drive.
Thundereggs with blue and moss agate
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
