This man was born to do this. Enthusiasm, passion, humour. I just stumbled onto these lectures and can't stop watching !

I have an Ellensburg Blue Agate ring passed down from my grandfather. He had so many, my dad has many of them now.

I wish we had standup geology here in my town! I would buy season tickets!!!

My geology training was Northeast US and Canada, I knew very little about the west. Now that I am retired from 40 years of teaching Earth Science and Chemistry in NYS and living in Arizona, I have discovered these lectures and am TOTALLY enjoying and learning so much!!! I had great professors in NYS as well, but the way Nick delivers is so "down to earth" pun intended....

I love this guy. I wish teachers were as passionate as him when I was in school. I love his teaching style. I have a lot of his lectures recorded for my granddaughter, I plan to home school her in a few years and this is all important for a basic grounding in geology. Thank you Nick for making these available.

Nick...I have always been interested in geology. My cousin is a PHD. Has had it for 25 years on now.... Your energy and series have fully sucked me in. Excellent stuff!! Your passion and delivery are bar none

I nerd out to every single one of his lecture series!.. but this one has me hooked more than usual... A great story teller and passionate teacher. 😁👍💚

These lectures make me want to go to graduate school and join CWU Geological Sciences

I just love the fact you can regularly fill a modest multipurpose room with people interested in geological topics.

Very much appreciated is the sound quality in these series. Many lectures are ruined by the ambient sound of the voice echoing about the room. Thank you CWU for your production value and thanks for availing to us the knowledge and enthusiasm of Nick Zentner and his colleagues.

Man, y'all are so lucky to live in such dramatic geology. I can't imagine having a breathtaking mountain or canyon etc as an everyday backdrop, or have anything more than the southern Appalachians within practical distance. Just below the Piedmont (upstate) in Greenwood, South Carolina all we have is red mud and sand and on a flat plain. When I've been able to see a "real" mountain in real life; I can actually *feel* it. Not sure what "it" is, but I feel something.

If every professor was like this man... Everyone would love being educated.

Nick, your like a drug, I can’t get enough. You make learning so much fun. Lord, what I could have learned from a teacher like you!!👍👍😁🇺🇸

Awesome. I love his explanation of how thunder eggs are made. Nick is a national treasure.

I am absolutely loving these geology videos!! Thank you so much. I love geology and learning new things. Wishing I wasn't so old and could go back to school .. you take care, thank you again..

I can't stop watching. He's the educator that we all wanted as students, and the one we teachers tried to be.

I just can't stop watching this Guys Lectures/Talks. He just like Prof. Brian Cox!

I have box of theses out in my garage. My daughter gave them to me. Her husband and her , were out hunting one day and found so many that she thought I would enjoy them. I would have NEVER, thought to make them into Jewelry, into it. Thank you for your presentation!

Does he remind anybody else of Jimmy Stewart? It's the way he talks. Love these lectures!

If you would you ever consider doing a lecture on the goodies found in the central OR region, and how they happened, I would be the happiest rockhound ever!

Why weren’t any of my teachers this amazing in school.

I wish they would have taught us this when I went to school. All of his lectures keep me wondering and learning. I was raised in othello and spent time in the areas around Ellensburg. I love rocks and wondered about all the rock formations.

Nice lecture again! One of the reasons that Teanaway basalts have large vesicles and CRBs do not may be that the former are more closely related to a subduction environment. There is subducted sea water available in their mantle source. This high water content is then inherited by the Teanaway magmas, resulting in large bubbles when water escapes from the magma. Voluminous flood basalts such as CRBs are usually derived by high degree of melting of relatively dry mantle sources, have rather low water content, and thus also contain smaller vesicles.

I stumbled onto these lectures and I am hooked! this is so interesting...! Thanks...!

The best lecture series. Nick Rocks!

Thank you. Start to finish, incredibly informative and entertaining. Thank you :-)

I’m so sad to have caught up, now I need to rewatch and wait for new videos. We need more people like Nick who can synthesize multiple scientific sources of information into an informative and entertaining lecture.

Hi Nick. I came across your channel recently, by chance. Thank You for sharing your knowledge. Your style is captivating. I have a few samples of blue agate which my wife has made into "gem" trees. According to the rock shop, they came from Namibia and are known here as " Blue Lace" agate. I have many more of your presentations to keep me entertained, fortunately. Regards from S Africa Clive

Fascinating lecture. The thing I love about geology is the interacting processes that evolve a landscape over time. Tens of millions of years of geology, superheated water dissolving and redepositing minerals, weathering, erosion, stream capture, all worked together to put blue gems on the floor of the now dry valley. Really amazing stuff and really well explained.

Purple agates in Holley Oregon, by Sweet Home. I was told they are very similar to Ellensburg Blue. Very small search area. Possibly all on private land. Unsure about that.

I was stationed in Idar-Oberstein while in the army. Lots of agate diggings and goods in shops.

Wow awesome I have listen to a few geology speakers and your explanation makes sense to me. Thank you

Have very much enjoyed this series! Great information well presented for my second grade mind to absorb. Thank You Nick

NZ is a thrilling speaker. Enjoying these very much. This one has better sound than some of the older ones. Totally into this.

I wish that my college professors would have been so interesting to watch!

I grew up in eastern Washington and never even knew these blue agates existed. Wow, I watched the whole presentation and was truly intrigued, informed and entertained. Really nice video, well done and I appreciate the opportunity to learn about these special minerals and their unique formation & journey to the Ellensburg area.

Another magnificent lecture.

Cool presentation thanks much.

Love the series, been ingesting the video's with interest, thank you for sharing them! I've never had an interest in Geology in the past, I can follow the lecture but what I get to enjoy is the dynamics of Earth's history and a picture of the Earth we know and love forming ;)

NZ, you are the super club of Geology!

If Tom Hanks was a geology teacher.

Dear Nick, I have enjoyed all your videos and many more than once. As a modest rock and mineral collector, I seem to be drawn more to geology sites than collector sites. It all fascinates me. I am especially attracted to those blues. Some day I hope to add one to my collection but I imagine they are well hunted out as far as public land goes. It does pike my curiosity whether or not you have a modest mineral/rock collection of your own. It just seems natural to me. Anyways, I am finally subscribing. I am in Pierce Co. and hope to make the trek to your side-o-the-mountains and maybe sit in on a lecture if that is still an option. Thank you-Mark

Great video, excellent presentation. Thank you!

Dude, the absolute fuckery is this. This stuff is amazing dude. It's educational entertainment on youtube that youtuhbe recommended to me. It's wholesome and lovely, with a great presenter. Congrats on having this sude CQU.

Bought a lovely blue agate ring at a craft show a few years ago when we visited Ellensburg.

Thank you so much! Although I have hunted Blues off and on for over 40 years I did not know the specifics on where they come from, how they got here. I found the best one of my life 4 years ago and was thrilled to see it in this video. The two pictures one I was holding it in my hand and the next it was on a white tape measure. I did sell that one for $1,200. In recent years I have heard from a few people that go hunting up First Creek. I did not know until watching this video as to why. Curious though, I did ask how to get there. It sounds like you have to park a long ways from it and hike in. I think I may check it out soon as this video definitely has me intrigued as to that area. Thank you again for the most informative video I have ever seen about the Ellensburg Blue Agate and for making my day by seeing one of my own on this video.

I found some right by the road going into Green Canyon on the west side. There are hundreds of acres for you to look. There are several kinds of agates you can find out there. You will go home with red,green,white,and blues agates. One time I was giving up for the day and had the car door open and something 20 yards away something was shining, I went over and there in the ditch was a real nice blue dross on one side which in layers went to cornflower blue. I still have that piece ,most of it anyway. I kept the bluest part and gave the blue dross to my honey at the time, she was with me when we found the speciman. I love Washington Geology.

I havent heard about Ellensburg or any of the names of places, I only know of agate gems from the game Baldur's Gate. Yet, I watched your entire video. It's very compelling.

Every three minutes I am yelling out, "WHAT?!" This is so interesting!!!!

I love the mini tutorials that you have created. Could you please think about doing something on these holes that have made their appearance the last few years all over the world. also I would enjoy it if you could think about covering the east coast as their are many many geological things that are interesting. Your 2 or 3 minute geology series is amazing and so informative for adults and kids too. It is precious and I consider it one of the things that should be programmed into kid viewing plans by parents and grandparents. Thank you so much.

Move to Yakima Washington in 1967 lived next to the owners of Beeman's Rock Shop owned some of Andy's beautiful Ellensburg blue Rings sadly have lost

I spent many hours up near green canyon looking for blues did I find any , you bet I found several nice pieces.

Yup, geeks rule the world. Truly love his work and very very good at it. Totally enjoy watching your talent and understanding. Thanks for sharing your life and teaching with the world, keep going. :)

We have red agates here in Minnesota. Great video.

Enjoyed very much!!! Thank you!!!

Love this stuff... however it is saddening that there are so many grey-hairs (like myself) in the audience and not enough younger folks.

Among the wealth of geological information in here, there are some hidden nuggets if you pause and compare to a GPS map. Amazing!

This has been most informative ,thanks so much .

Why is NOONE who attends Nick's lectures younger than 82?

Excellent seminar!

This guy does a way better job than the history channel.

Well done presentations.

Excellent - MORE - More

Absolutely riveting

I went to CWSC in 73-75 then again after the Army in 82-84.

CWU Class of 75 here---- (CWSC Then) My sister and I went agate hunting up under the powerlines a couple times. She found a large gem quality Blue agate, the best I've ever seen. She was going to keep it but she took it to a local Jewler who offered her $250 for it. To a poor college student in 1974 this was a fortune so she sold it. It was later made into a pair of wedding rings.

Great speaker, fun and interesting video. Thank you!

Excellent lecture series.

These videos are great! Just a guy and a chalkboard. No fancy camera editing. But the speaker is immediately engaging and stops me from clicking to a different video.

Blues of small size but superb color come out of the Walker Valley basalts near Mt.Vernon. There is an in situ source people can work as well as blues in very small amounts in the glacial sediments out as far as the west beaches of Whidbey Island.

Washington was made like Hawaii and used to feel like Florida, and had flowing lava : ) earth is cool

damn, now i want to go to Ellensburg

There isn't an Oscar for outstanding performance by a professor?

I’m going to have to come get some for my little trees!

I find it interesting all the cotton-tops in the audience. Seems like younger generations have a thin interest in substantial knowledge and prefer virtual appreciations.

These lectures are great. Anybody know of something similar for California?

Great informative videos. Seems like all of my favorite twisty roads ( Frenchman’s coullee, sun lakes, whiskey dick highway) have great geological history

very engaging lecture,

I want to move to Washington!

So the blue is "structrural" blue, much like how butterfly wings use tiny scales that act as a diffraction pattern to diffract out blue light..

The blue reminds me of kyanite

Love your lectures, and my hair is not grey!?

🤓 Nick ROCKS! ❤️

I've always thought that the agate at Red Top is the exact same material that many call Ellensburg blues. There is catastrophic flood evidence just about everywhere in Washington. Not too far of a move geographically, maybe 25 miles in a straight line?

The Ellensburg Blue Agates remind me of the Holly Blue Agates found in the western Cascade range of Oregon. Holly Blue Agates are actually opal not chalcedony. Are the Ellensburg Blue Agates opal or chalcedony? I heard mention of a taste test in the video portion of your stage presentation and was wondering if the individuals were looking to see if the “Agates” were sticky which to me would indicate the presence of opal. Thanks for a great presentation!

Why are Ellensburg Agates so expensive, though??

Nice treasure map! i go now

That boundary Is important, agates on one side, diamonds on the other. ✌🏽

Thank you

In reference to him talking about water precipitating layers of quartz in the vesicles of the basalt, how does new water get into the hole when it already has a layer of quartz lining it? Wouldn't that layer seal it off?

Are blue agates related to silver foxes?

Another great talk. Although a little more information about the origins of the saturated heated water that flowed through the basalt host rock, ... and that whole process would have been interesting. Still I learned a lot.

Wow! those are beautiful and so much prettier than Lake Superior agates which are mainly brown colors. I don't think I got to keep any of the agates I found up north but they were small to tiny anyway. There's 2 or 3 buckets of beach pebbles up north but I can't get up there any longer. I do want to mention the gas bubbles in the magma. (You didn't mention this as I recall) Those that cool slower have larger 'pockets' to fill than those that cooled quickly. Mother Nature sure has given us some beautiful things.

Thank you for a great explanation of the formation and source of Ellensburg Blues. I'm in MO, but come thru to visit family, and would love to spend a day (not long enough, but all that is free) on an agate hunt. Are there people, or clubs, I could contact for directions and permission for such a thing? I expect landowners would want a fee?

Awesome

Spent 8 hrs looking at rockin tomahawk, great tan and finds, where do I look for a piece that really will define me as a rockhound? Is it worth digging for? How do I find a piece that is fist sized versus a finger nail? Anyone want to agate hunt today?

something I'm not getting: why is the majority of the audience silver haired? Just my second video of this man and I love him. Just not understanding the age of the audience. I mean, I have silver hair and I'd sit in this room...just not sure why others would?

we have lots of agates here in Nova Scotia, but I never found a blue agate. I have found black agate. very rare to my eyes.

I am actually from Minnesota, and I love learning about geology. I would like to learn more about the geology of my area, but learning about other areas is always fun too. I love watching these videos. Nick you make this so interesting and fun!!!! Thank you!

A brilliant series 👌