Hermann, MO

Howdy Toad, Check out www.dnr.mo.gov/pubs/pub654.pdf. It mentions several collecting areas. Were it me, I'd try for the Potosi area and the Missouri lace Agate. It's really pretty material and I talked with someone who hunted in at a gem show. He said you just walk the areas around the old mine dumps, streambeds etc and find quite a bit....mel

PS: Puppie96 posted a thread on this material awhile ago with lots of pics. You might see if you can find it in a search.

Shoot, yeah. Out by Hermann isn't a place I've gone rocking, though there are rock sites all over the state and any river or creek has possibilities. My faves are in SE MO -- like they said above, Potosi area, but I have several specific places -- and the gravel bar at Chain of Rocks on the Illinois side -- though in May the water level may be too high to go there.
Keep in touch!

Moz. seems to occur as float in a variety of places. I'm not sure always about the distinction between it and the patterned flint that also shows up around here in abundance. I've seen a lot of pretty moz. at the shows and I tend to associate it with that pink color but it isn't always pink tinted. One of the places near the city where I've gone was in a guide book that wasn't too specific about what I was going to look for, but later when I was obsessing over geologic maps and whatnot I found that there's in fact a moz. deposit right in that area.

I've tried so many times to get down to the MO river someplace and it is so impossible. COR is in the Mississippi but it is just downstream from the MO/Mississippi confluence, so the rock you find comes down the Missouri drainage, which is really pretty exciting if you think about it -- you can find anything there and in 2 days of hunting I found it pretty amazing. Lots and lots of really fabu pet wood, a nice laker or two and some others that were maybe lakers, carnelian, montana agate, bubblegum agate, prairie agate. ETC -- plenty of IDUNNOITES! Wow! But really, I'd say MO lace agate is the easiest to collect, since it is so common in the southeastern part of the state. I even find it occasionally in the local St. Louis streams. If you are just a casual rocker wanting to pick up a couple of bags, it would probably be easiest to go to Washington State Park, where collecting is supposedly prohibited without permission but nobody seems to care anyhow -- though I've never known anybody to abuse it by taking a truck or something. There are several places that I go to that are maybe 15 minutes drive from the park where collecting is evidently legal from the creek bed and it is a gold mine. Another is nearer to Farmington.
The June Culp Zeitner book is how I got started, has directions to the places I have gone.

Hi -- wow, another local. This is great! The COR gravel bar is accessed from the IL side. Easy to get to, a little remote. If you want to go I'll give you directions. What's Howell Island?? I've picked up the usual local colored flint out of Babler Creek and others out in that area. I've never followed any rock guides to anyplace out that way, it seems to be hit or miss for stuff. I believe that some of the local flint grades into Mozarkite, so it is always a little bit interesting, and you never know what you will find in those creeks -- all sorts of stuff turns up, and fossils, too. Welcome to the board and hope you'll hang out for a while.

I've got em though. Read some of the posts, most of it is up here somewhere.
I have lots of MO lace agate. I love hunting out that way. Last time we went, we passed a couple of new subdivisions under construction off Manchester -- lots of rock -- I picked up some very red stained flint some of which may be low grade mozarkite. You never know what you'll find in any old gravel bed. Howell Island -- I'm clueless where you mean, & too tired to look at a map right now!