Utah Salina Canyon wonderstone is one of the most dramatically colorful types of wonderstone found in the West. "Wonderstone" is a category of rhyolite rocks and it comes in a lot of varieties in several western states, but none of it looks quite like Salina Canyon wonderstone. The pieces offered don't look very colorful because there's a secret about this type of rock that you need to know.
 
One of my customers sent pictures of some Salina Canyon Wonderstone that he polished. Check them out at this link. (Check out some of the other rock pictures that people have sent in while you're there !)
 
A Wonder of Stones
 
Salina Canyon wonderstone is a narrow intrusion between existing formations. (Like a laccolith except that this one is only a few inches thick.) The intrusive tuff was broken into chunks and then after that it became wondersgone. So every individual chunk is has concentric spherical layers of contrasting colors, even though the entire deposit is a long, narrow layer broken into pieces that fit together in the ground like a jigsaw puzzle. These rocks are nodule that were broken this way millions of years ago.
 
As Mother Nature metamorphized volcanic tuff to create this colorful rock, the color "soaked in" from the surface of each nodules to the center. This created the varying spheres of color from the outside in.
 
Often, the chunks have a black center. Some people like the dramatic contrast between a black center and tan layers. Others don't. (If this rock is not what you like, send me a message. I have more.)
 
If you search for "Utah Wonderstone" you'll find lots of hits for a rock found a hundred miles or so north of Salina Canyon called Vernon Hills wonderstone. Vernon Hills is a much more common pastel colored rock.

This listing is for the rock pictured at the frront of the pictures. The others are there to show what the rock looks like when polished. One of the pictures is a finished piece of jewelry using Salina Canyon Wonderstone that was made by David Horste at his Etsy Store, DVHdesignsLAPIDARY.