Rockin’ crystals Story by STEPHANIE BRUMFIELD Photographs by JON GOERING
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ometimes, stories take on lives of their own as they’re passed down, but that hasn’t been the case with those that surround the University of Montevallo
geode. Often dubbed the world’s largest geode, the nearly eight-foot tall, seven-foot wide, eight-ton metamorphic rock currently sits in the Harman Hall courtyard, and the story goes that Harman was built around the geode. It turns out this is exactly the case. After the geode was found in an iron quarry 20 | ShelbyLiving.com
in southeast Shelby County in November 1965, it was donated to the University of Montevallo (then Alabama College) by the Shook and Fletcher Mining Company and the Shelby County Highway Department. The 1896-1996 volume of “Years Rich and Fruitful: University of Montevallo” says Harman, built in 1967-1968, was “constructed around a courtyard where there is an eight-ton geode,” which is the same story professor and geologist James Connell used to tell his students before he died in 1983. Like most geodes, Montevallo’s was formed after a cavity was created in rock layers. UM geology professor Barbara Brande said cavities in rock layers are formed by ground water passing through and
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: The University of Montevallo geode is on display in the Harman Hall courtyard. The geode is nearly eight feet tall, seven feet wide and weighs about eight tons. A crust of crystals is layered on the inside of the geode.