Have you found any cool rocks recently /out/?
Collection of black Tourmaline (?) I've found. Not super confident in the identification though.
Does this rock look like it has minerals in it
I don't think it's tourmaline, I think pyroxene, or even amphibole, would be more likely. To be sure, you can test the hardness against a quartz crystal. The tourmaline will scratch the qtz, the amp/px won't. Nice rock tho
>>2753240Might as well, post a fresh face
>>2753276It's hornblende. Just did a scratch test with quartz and material is coming off the sample. Damn I really though it was Tourmaline because of how large the crystals were
>>2753361Do you have an ID on the rock itself? Looks like a granodiorite to me
>>2753162found this recently looking for agate, I think its flint or chert
>>2753162not recent but im proud of it, looks and weighs like might be gold but I've never tested and that would be exceptionally lucky but was found in a gold area in colorado geology rocks!
>>2753548Flint is chert (which is quartz)>>2753486It's loose rock I found on a trail so I don't have any definite ID on the rock. They all have pretty similar makeup>White feldspar (prob plag) bulk of the rock>quartz>Large black crystals (hornblende?)>Small garnets (almandine) in some samplesNotably absent >Muscovite>Biotite
Anything good?
Hi, do you guys think its an meteorite?I found it in a desert zone.Maybe you guys can help me ID it. Thanks.
Here's another pic, It's heavier than it looks.
>>2753636Likely just really corroded iron. Meteorites are exceptionally rare.
>>2753549most likely chalcopyrite blue-green tarnish is product of copper sulphides oxidation
I rockhound reasonably often around Vegas. I'll post a keeper in a bit.
>>2753636Cut a cross section. You may have found some 1900s mining slag waste. Neat, if I'm correct.
>>2753745my favorite piece of jasper i found southern vegas area. put it in my front yard under my prickly pear.
>>2753745and here we have>gypsum veins in mud, from st george>crinoid fossil with some gypsum veins>two nice volcanic/basalt rock specimens i like, volcanic rocks like these are actually not as common as you may think 'round these parts, most basalt rock is fairly solid and not as porous as like HI volcanic rock
>>2753775I want to go agate hunting sometime but I don't live in a great area for that unfortunately.
>>2753828gem and mineral society in vegas has a claim southeast of vegas. tons of "bacon agate". never been myself. you'll like this.
>>2753839I live in New England so there isn't much in the way of sedimentary rocks. Lots of beryl and garnets though.
Western KY here. Did the glaciers ever get this far south? Some of the hollers on my grandad’s land have huge fuckoff boulders the size of houses. And sections of cliff and rock that just seem cut
>>2753856If the rocks are dissimilar to the surrounding rock then they could be glacial deposits.
>this whole threadmindat.orgfind your area, find your rock etc
>>2753876>barges into thread>links wikipedia and google>"there, i solved the thread">refuses to elaborate
does anyone have anything shiny or brightly colored more like a gem/polished?these are all kind of dull
>>2753856>Did the glaciers ever get this far south?no>Some of the hollers on my grandad’s land have huge fuckoff boulders the size of houses.it's low dissected plateau, the water shapes the land and moves large rocks during floodsthe rocks are cut, by a natural water-powered saw if you will
>>2753692thanks! seems so, with my 20x mag I did note 4 shiny metal colors copper being one of course xD but glad to have the name of the stone
The mystery of the blue feldspar like mineral has been solved. It is in fact, a blue feldspar. More specifically it's Cleavelandite, a variant of Albite. Turns out it's fairly common where I live. Here are some small ones I found.
>>2753987gemstones are generally not of cobble size, lol. every single gemstone mine on the planet is currently being operated. we mortals must make do with less-than-gemstone-quality material.all my shiny shit is currently placed around some solar lights that light up at night. no shiny rocks from me.
Larger image of all the feldspars I've collected recently. There are a ton of them around here.
>>2753993I don't care if its gemstone quality just something with a bit of translucence and shine and a bright color.
These two are quite nice. >>2753996I have a number of small garnets biotite and muscovite both can be quite shiny. I'll post some in a bit
Biotite.
I believe this is phlogopite as it has a subtle honey yellow coloration around the edges.
>>2753996all right, well, here's a photo few see. my private collection that guards my weed and weed accessories. some shinies in their i think. frankly, i wasnt joking when i said that most of my quartz vein specimens are outside under my prickly pear. im not a college-age chick, so i dont give a shit about keeping CRYSTALS in my house. i put them under lights so they sparkle at night.
>>2754034better>>2754036nice but you need like a macro mode on your camera>>2754037looks poisonous
>>2754011What's the green one? Hard to tell from the image.
>>2754011this one has actually confused me a couple times. never really classified this one. i dont really know if its selenium or really slow cooled quartz.
>>2754048it's just some really weathered turquoise i found in tonopah, nv. it may have been just lying around an old mine. half my weed stash collection is simply memories and good specimens.
>>2754059thats a great specimen, but im not sure any asbestiform is rare. actinolite was discovered circa- expansion of roman empire era. prove to me it's rare, describe it further.
>>2754066eh. maybe. just dont pay too much for it. it's just asbestos. one of many. in fact, one of the top five, if memory serves. actinolite has been mined for literally thousands of years, along with all the other asbestos minerals.
>>2754102oh, i'm sure i'm dense. i'm way more interested in images of literal truckloads of emeralds and diamonds. post pic of truckload of emeralds, that would be really interesting. on a tangent, i've got a gem-encrusted bridge for sale, if you're interested.
Found this amazonite, with very cool translucency.
This was a very small round pebble likely monazite.
Contains titanium and iron, suspect ilmenite.
>>2753989most likely you can find this mine here https://www.mindat.org/loc-3585.htmlgold is usually dispersed as micro inclusions in sulphides, most commonly in pyrite and arsenopyrite, it is possible do find native gold in some veins and it forms very small leafs and wires>>2754003weathered biotite also has this yellow color, distinguishing those two by eye is basically impossible, normally in gneiss or pegmatite i would suspect biotite, phlogopite require magnesium source so it occur rather in some contact zones in those>>2754050that's chalcedony
>>2754163>chalcedonydamn, thanks for the call. looks like it. never came across that mineral before, neat. looks like ancient people did some cool shit with it. i will now keep a much better eye-out for more.
>>2754187>find me a similar picture of actinolite in clear quartzlisten, man. i know your type. i've worked with you, i've seen you get excited over finding buried treasures in the wilderness. bluntly, i dont care about you posting photos of gems you purchased online, had shipped to your house, cleaned up, and photographed. you have nothing to prove to me, don't sweat it, you do you. take this lightly: gems and minerals are scams 99% of the time. sellers will craft the best stories you can imagine in order to make a sale. dont get me wrong, you have great specimens. but theyre just that. specimens. anyone can buy gemstones in current year, we all have the internet.i have a ~30lb boulder of some local amphibole and quartz conglomerate. you c'mon over to my place, i'll cut it up, and you can make some asbestos jewelry for yourself and me. on the house.
>>2754011here's a photo showing my progress with front yard accent piece. couple cheapo walmart solar lights, bunch of chopped up quartz veins i pick from a few outcrops. still need many more, but i'll worry about that when temperatures have two digits instead of three.
>>2754202also in the background is some calcium carbonate rocks. saw a peach-white outcrop a couple months ago, real light material. grabbed a backpack of calcium rocks, spread across front yard. birdies perch and peck it on occasion. i also no longer need to worry about calcium in soil in my front yard.
>>2754188It is pale white and green without shining light through it. Found it in a pegmatite in Petaca, Rio Arriba County, NM. Don't have a regular photo, didn't look too interesting.
>>2754111JellyNeed some amazonite to round out my feldspar collection but I don't think there is any up here in New England.
>>2754187>find me a similar picture of actinolite in clear quartzhttps://www.mindat.org/photoscroll.php?searchbox=Actinolite+with+QuartzUSA, Washington https://www.mindat.org/photo-1343323.htmlUSA, California https://www.mindat.org/photo-1162660.htmlItaly https://www.mindat.org/photo-1146845.htmlAustria https://www.mindat.org/photo-456043.htmlGreece https://www.mindat.org/photo-115008.htmlSwitzerland https://www.mindat.org/photo-1035857.html
>>2754165aw man, it looks like some chalcedony fluoresces. just tested mine, nothing. come october, im gonna get a big ass uv bulb for my flashlight and find some.
>>2754233Make sure you get the right one. I got a 395-400nm and I'm pretty sure it doesn't work well. You want a 365nm
>>2754235Why must you guys always complicate things? what is it that compels people to avoid chill and ease? i'm not going to "make sure" of shit. i'm gonna buy a uv light from any normal store brand, remove old light bulb (in my flashlight, just to clarify) and be done with it. it's a fucking bulb or led or whatever. this isn't 1940, we know how this shit works lol.
>>2754056ooooooh, nicewhy does nobody polish their finds?
>>2754277Most of us don't purchase gemstones. Every rockhounder does, in fact, polish some of their finds. just not many, because frankly, lol why bother its not worth it. we're perfectly content placing a handful of rough gemstones in a 4oz soil jar, labeling it, and putting it on a shelf to be forgotten for a few years. sometimes, we get together, smoke the ganja, and do stupid shit. like pool some our junk finds together, have a bbq, cut a bunch into fun shapes n shit, and store in an old wooden treasure chest that's actually only like fifteen years old, but i made it kinda look weathered and beaten. then we give them out at halloween to kiddies because a few of us just stick with the whole pirate theme for halloween every year. treasure chest full of roughly-cut junk gemstones kids wont notice, some laffy taffy and skittles.also, it would take a shitload more patience than i have to cut and polish shit like this. i wont do it, maybe a grandkid down the line might wanna cut it. if you have any pals who rockhound, i guaran-fuckin'-tee it that you can simply show interest in any one of their specimens lying around and just ask them if you can cut or polish it for yourself. we all keep shit like that lying around to "brag" about or seem cool to the kids my buddies brought over. you give a six year old some big chunk of colorful chert, and that kid will be curious for hours.
>>2754277Why would I destroy the natural beauty of the mineral by polishing it?
>>2754286to reveal natural beauty of the mineral by polishing itwhile there is no point in polishing shit from that pic, cutting and polishing is only method to reveal textures of a rock or for example veinhaving rock crack open with hammer isn't more natural than cutting it, ofc nobody is doing that with automorphic crystals other than for chemical analysis
>>2754195You really don't know anything about the gem and mineral business and it's so bizarre how stupid you are sitting here trying to talk about anything, let me guess, you think diamonds are valuable? Let's get one thing straight retard, basically all rocks are paperweights and even if you carve it into something cool it's probably still a paperweight. There's nothing inherently valuable about them in a modern society except from a collectors point, to put it into your stupid modern brain in a term you can understand basically real NFT's that earth generated a long time ago and we can make more of some of them but can't make more of all of them-but they won't be the same. There's two types of rock collecting and it basically boils down to specimens and worked stones. Specimens are as the name implies basically a good example of a rock/crystal from a local and often something rare. You could not replace them legitimately unless you get really lucky and they hit a pocket of it somewhere on the planet that's undiscovered (Keep in mind China is deep in Africa right now taking all the shit that's in one of the only places the world hasn't totally catalogued so the chances of hitting a pocket is low). Worked stones are things like carvings, jewelry, etc. This is where 99% of the scam industry comes in because if you don't have something legit you just cut it to make it look cool (cabachons, carvings) and if you don't have a legit crystal formation but you have clarity you can just cut it into a faceted stone and make fancy high class jewelry. I go to the worlds' largest gem and mineral show every year and have been there for the last ten years working and collecting, what do you do? Take this picture and multiply it by a thousand, and you still won't have the slightest idea of how big the event is. Most people really don't understand how much raw material of 99% of the common shit you would see in a Jeweler Cabinet is, you're one of those people.
>>2754225yes congratulations you've found several kinds that aren't green and the two green ones you've managed to link were collected long ago, one in the 50s(california) and the other hard to say but the guy is just a collector from looking at his uploads you can see he collected a different unrelated quartz from the area and photographed it and detailed when he personally collected it but for the green actinolite in quartz he just mentions the locale with not even a little history. Probably bought that one from someone who took him there or told him about the spot and he went there looking himself. Your Switzerland one isn't even the one I was expecting, because there is plenty from Europe that is all mined out.I need a supply of it yesterday for jewelry and specimens, linking me mindat specimens as if those are accurate representations of what you could possibly hope to get is hilarious. Half of those sources are exhausted, most of it was collected long ago.
>>2754363I mean, I was at least expecting a photo of > I could literally find you truck loads of emeralds, rubies, diamonds, garnets, and tourmaline etc>>27541025-gallon lowes buckets are cool 'n' all, but you got any truck loads? in practical terms, i suppose it might be equivalent to...ten 55-gal drums? thats a good approximation. no amethyst though, every nail salon has a five foot piece of amethyst for the Lord's sake.
>>2754365>go find me a photo right now of a truck load of that thing you could literally order a million of right nowYou'll want a photo of an actual truck load of weed because I tell you I could get you a truck of weed as a reference to how easily acquired it is? Are you being stupid on purpose? Lay off the fucking weed dipshit. >In the first half of 2011, the Kagem Mines produced 3.74 tons of emeralds.
>>2754363>I go to the worlds' largest gem and mineral show every year and have been there for the last ten years working and collecting, what do you do? Take this picture and multiply it by a thousand, and you still won't have the slightest idea of how big the event is>shows photo of fair with faked quartz crystals, cut from massive quartz
>>2754370You cannot fathom the scale, no pictures would do it justice you'd just be looking at tents or a big quartz crystal, maybe a case or a tent like in pic related. Most of the serious dealing goes on behind closed doors with things that nobody wants to bring out into the public's reach. Every single hotel along the highway in Tucson turns their bottom floor into a showcase where every single room is a different mine owner, different jewelry store owner, different jewelry maker, artist, collector, etc. That doesn't even touch the pop-up tent showcase space that goes up where people rent 30x70 tents etc to peddle their shitI can show you a picture of a massive tent with a bunch of booths but that doesn't do anything justice
>>2754222There are occurrences in Ontario and NY. You never know what the glaciers might've brought down. I've found a few pieces that look like it here in NNY but they're the wrong shade of green.>>2754233So-called chalcedony roses tend to fluoresce. I've got some I pulled out of a free box tucked away somewhere I want to test but I can't find them.
>>2754382>You cannot fathom the scalekinda looks like a local charter gem and mineral society meet up, but with larger tents that probably wont blow away easily. good idea for old fat people with buckets of rocks.https://www.snvgms.org/quartzsite2020photos
>>2754384I checked mindat and there do seem to be some locations in my state but you need permission to collect
wrens discovered a cuttlebone i played outside and a calcium chunk. they pecked and bounced around. tiny birds now know they can clean their beaks with some rocks at my place.
I think these are calcite, but I'm not sure. What kind of vinegar do I need to do the acid test? All I have is distilled white and that didn't react with my aragonite sample at all so I figured it's not acidic enough.
>>275528310% at least, but vinegar reacts very poorly with big crystals, it's much better with fine crystalline rocks like limestone (because crystals react easiest on the edges)better to buy hydrochloride acid online it can be also dolomite, baryte or fluorite, or their mixture, no way to tell from samples like this
>>2755283i buy a quart of HCl from the muriatic acid aisle at lowes during clearance times. fuck vinegar, just get muriatic acid from any store. geologists keep a voa with an eyedropper on their person.
>>2754388I think I might have been there. around pictured rocks somewhere?
>>2754363immortalizing this as copypasta nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnow.
>>2754068Should point out that nephrite jade is actinolite (or tremolite depending) the good grades of which are moderately valuable.
>>2755677it's possible, sure. good grades of ANY product are moderately valuable lol, i agree. however, if we're gonna use $ as the metric in a dick measuring contest, good luck against my ~40lb chunk of chrysotile conglomerate. and all it cost me was a little bit of fuel and beef jerky. betcha my chunk of amphibole gets a higher price at auction than some polished 10c piece of jade lol.i bet if i cut some cross-sections, i could get something similar to this. entirely different parent material composition though. but what are we talking about lol? this is /out/, we find rocks. /biz/ occasionally has a gemstone thread, but it usually dies out without much input.
>>2755697I've seen chrysotile in serpentine sold as a "gem" decorative stone. I'll wager you'll never see a show called Asbestos Fever on the Discovery Channel though.
>>2755821yeah i mean, don't get me wrong. ive had an inspectors and supervisor/contractor license for years. amphiboles really are neat. it's just a shame we haven't figured out a reliable way to keep people from disturbing the shit, inhaling the fibers, living with quartz needles in their lungs for twenty years, then suddenly die.once we figure that out, asbestos is gonna make a come-back.
>>2755828shit, im a little blazed. meant to also type a neat fact. in the ahera industry, there are three things that we are allowed to automatically assume are not potentially asbestos containing material: wood, glass, metal. asbestos has never been used in developing building materials constructed from wood, glass, metal.however...a few rare exceptions exist. one notable example for asbestos in glass is spacecraft. glass viewing windows on spacecraft is constructed of some ultra high tech recipe involving the use of some asbestos, probably chrysotile but i dunno. i also recall hearing from an old dude some old dance or performance floor he once saw fibers embedded in. gut instinct correct, someone made a solid piece of glass flooring with asbestos tossed into the mix.
>>2755828Woah woah wait are you saying plain amphibole like hornblende are just like asbestos?
>>2755830yeah, man. put words in my mouth (metaphorically, of course) and then use a loaded question. like a drunk angry college chick lmao. we're chill here. if you needa smokabowl prior to posting, do so. we wont stop ya. and brush your teeth.
>>2755842magnificent. serene.
>>2755842No I was genuinely asking cause I don't know...It's only bad if it's the fibrous stuff right?
>>2755848correct. the only reason asbestos is an issue is because of its fibrous structure. the actual literal physical and chemical properties are the perfect combination to be inhaled, get stuck in lungs, and never break down or go away because...it's quartz. it's non-reactive. scar tissue builds up over decades.
>>2755852Oh thank God. I though my fancy hornblende was dangerous for a moment there.
>>2755856for the life of me, i cannot recall the name of this light blue amphibole i found in boulder city nevada, just a short drive over. its well-rounded and weathered, likely bottom of the ocean like fiddy million years ago.i've seen specimens of the same amphibole both as fibrous and as well weathered like an ocean pebble. ive got a specimen of the latter, perfectly safe. just dont fuckin crush it and snort it. geologists lick rocks frequently, so i think this warning is warranted.
>>2755857https://geologyscience.com/minerals/glaucophane/?ampThis?
>>2756465all right, i'm not terribly blazed at the moment.https://www.unlv.edu/sciences/research/natural-asbestoshttps://www.earthmagazine.org/article/asbestos-found-nevada-and-arizona-roadblock-and-potential-health-hazard/>In a November 2013 article in the journal of the Soil Science Society of America, Buck, Metcalf and colleagues reported their discovery in southern Nevada of actinolite, one of the regulated asbestos minerals.>The researchers first found the fibrous blue and green amphibole mineral lining fractures in Miocene granitoid plutons in an area of the McCullough Range south of Las Vegas.this is certainly what i'm trying to remember. i feel like i recall it being named something else though. but im sure im splitting hairs on memories from like fifteen or twenty years ago. geology field trip with metcalf out to boulder city, went to a few outcrops, picked up a couple light blue specimens. i actually tried finding it yesterday. it might be in my one singular box of mish-mashed rocks i like but have no clue where i got them. oh well, its not rare.
>>2756466>Has asbestos in one of his random rock boxesBro uhhhh. Maybe get rid of that or something
>>2756483no joke, an old boss of mine was like early 60s, been rockhounding his whole life. had some purple skin tumor thing removed from his neck while i was working under him. anyway, one particular monday, he comes back from a rockhounding trip with a big ol' chunk of some conglomerate, none of us notice anything at first except it looks like it weighed ~80lbs. then my buddy examined it. my fuckin boss brought in a chunk of uranium ore he found and put it in his office. we had to fucking tell the office manager to tell him to get rid of it, because my fuckin boss was the dept manager.
>>2756483asbestos don't split itself into fibers by lying in a box>>2756492being exposed to large dose alpha/ beta particles over prolonged time can give you skin tumor, but still my bet it was because of sun i see sometimes some scorched construction workers with untreated shit like this on their head or neck
>>2756492Fuckin based. I want a chunk of uranite on my desk as a paper weight too
just a funny tooth-like rock with incrustations, found at a rocky beach.
>>2755828yeah retard it's calledINSIDECLEARQUARTZlike what you've been arguing isn't as valuable as your retarded backyard rocks in this entire thread
>blue chalcedony? bro it's just chalcedony how could it be valuable there's chalcedony everywhere bro lmao my conglomerate with a bunch of common bullshit is worth way more than your chalcedony
>>2756682nah m8. minerals that meet the definition of asbestos are only ever dangerous to human health when they are fibrous (and also airborne). every asbestiform has fibrous and non-fibrous varieties available for you to find in the wild. doesnt have to be contained inside anything lol, read a book or go outside and look for yourself
don't listen to people who don't go out to the wilderness as often as you do. literally every geologist in vegas swears there are no metals here. i strongly disagree, and i'm making progress towards finding them. found copper, now on to silver. gold and silver is more around Searchlight and Nelson.
>>2756684who are you quoting
>>2756684>posts photo of artificially dyed chalcedony
>>2756724Preeety sure that's gem silica.
>>2756733what's occurrence thenit could be due to copper minerals but chalcedony is very easy to dye so majority of bright stuff is fakedif the vendor does not specify a location with a documented occurrence, then it's 100% a fake
>>2756736i think this guy buys those neon colored lilies or daisies or whatever at grocery stores. i like them, too
I bring back interesting looking rocks from Lake Superior to put in my plant containers.I don't know anything about rocks. Anything fun in this bunch? Also one of them is not from Lake Superior. Can you guess which?
>>2756736I think they just pulled a picture off the web but the fact that several pieces are multi-colored and not from differential uptake suggests it's the real stuff. And yeah, it gets it's color from chysocolla and malachite. But at 100$ a carat for cut stones you better believe people are faking it. >>2756761The broken petwood looking piece in back?
>>2756724>>2756736You buffoon, it was an example of something common having an extremely rare type of occurrence. It's chrysocolla inside the chalcedony causing it to be blue like that and it's extremely valuable.
>>2756808Whats it look like in the wild tho? Anyone can buy stones if they have a credit card. We want to see /out/ photos, not advertisements for some dudes shitty youtube show. You're confusing rarity for anyone giving a shit.
>>2756808>having an extremely rare type of occurrencelink me a paper about this occurrence
>>2756810it looks like rough Chrysocolla/malachite/azurite unless it's a piece of Gem Silica and then it is basically Chrysocolla with the hardness of Chalcedony. The reason it's valuable is because Chrysocolla, a bright blue, is often extremely delicate and cannot be polished without extreme stabilizing(glue) and even then it often doesn't work well. Gem silica is basically already stabilized in the Chalcedony. They search and search the piles of Chrysocolla for a tiny piece of Gem Silica>>2756812you could have just googled it yourselfhttps://geology.com/gemstones/gem-silica/
this is what it looks like in the ground when you hit a vein
>>2756818these pictures are just of an azurite/malachite pocket but this is basically the exact type of copper vein you would find gem silica in(extremely rarely)
most digs just look like this
>>2756806You are correct! That one is from Arizona. Any idea what this green one might be? I think the brown one is either an agate of some sort or rhyolite, but I really have no idea.
Large rock I found today with albite and cleavelandite >>2756818Need more blue and green minerals in my life man
>>2756821Yeah, thats how hunting for rocks goes.
>>2756841>cleavelandite> In 1936, Harold Lattimore Alling defined cleavelandite as a triclinic mineral, suggesting a difference from true albite as well as "analbite". >analbitecongrats on your analbite find, friendo
>>2756844The holy Trinity of minerals with unfortunate names>Analbite>Dickite>Cummingtonite
>>2756847This general needs a pastebin with all the childish joke name minerals, so everyone can have a rock collection The Bloodhound Gang would make a song about lmao
This one is my favorite because it looks like a hungry little guy and you can put smaller rocks in there.
>>2756852now with picture
>>2756852>>2756853based omarolluk finder
>>2756853there is zero glacial stuff within a thousand miles of me. man, see specimens like this is what i wanna trade in-person for. neat little pieces that are perfect examples of exotic stuff.i need to assemble a Trade Box with some good pieces. be prepared 'n' whatnot
>>2756840But for the spots I'd say Epidosite. there's a lot scattered around the great lakes brought down from the Canadian shield. Might still be since it varies and the color's right.This yours too? >>2756531Kind of looks like a low-grade lightning stone.
>>2756840agate looks close for the brown one. i'd guess some form of jasper. many types of jasper out there.
Are there any surefire ways of telling if something is an agate or not? I might have some but I'm not entirely sure. Most of them are small and very smooth like you would expect
>>2756871"agate" is kinda a catch-all term. it's a general term.
Hey, southern anons. My boyfriend and I are going on a week-long rockhounding trip, from up north so we’re hitting Kentucky for geodes and making our way down to Arkansas, going right to the Carolinas, and back up. Any notable spots to go and visit from all of these states? We do our own research, we have some spots picked out, but I’m always open to recommendation.Kentucky specifically seems to be a little hard to find spots that aren’t on private property. Would love to hear your experiences traveling and rockhounding.
>>275687190% of what you find outside on the ground will be Quartz, Jasper or Agate and often a bit of flaky Mica. Jasper and Agate are extremely similar, agate will often have more translucence or the ability for light to shine through it. Jasper is almost always 'shiny smooth with no translucence' and agate is almost always 'rough but translucent'. There are many different types of 'named' jasper that are all extremely unique looking and so you can easily tell that is that type of jasper - although you finding a particular kind of jasper in your back yard is extremely unlikely as they usually have specific pockets. Certain types of jasper were really abundant back in the day and now they are becoming valuable because the sources have been exhausted. Other types have a trade name and that trade name is only applied to certain material that came out of specific mines (for marketing purposes) like the Tiffany Jasper out of Utah, which has gone through many phases of 'Oh this is all we're gunna get of Tiffany Jasper!!!' and then next year they find another 'pocket' right next to mine they were about to 'shut down'
>>2756942dont go rockhounding unless you already picked out a spot to travel to. you dont wanna be aimlessly wandering around a new site youre unfamiliar with in a different state. pick one site near a road youll be traveling on, then stop there for lunch and a walk.if its geodes n shit, find a decent river near your travel route. eat lunch, kick rocks around the river sides, continue after finding some geodes.
>>2756942That is such a wide range you could spend the entire week at any single spot. Basically everything out east is private land and you'd be best creating an account on mindat and finding some obscure guy who owns property that would allow you to come rockhound for his Galena or some such bullshit. I can sufficiently tell you that from my years of experience in the business, the locations on the eastern seaboard that people give a shit about the rocks found there are few and far between. You're looking at Herkimer New York for Herkimer Quartz, Southern Arkansas for diamonds, Mid-Arkansas or Southern Missouri for Quartz, and literally no-where else unless you're looking for really obscure non-flashy shit.
>>2756965yup. here's a piece of southern nevada jasper with some iron. we dont really have any magnetite, but we do have iron scattered around occasionally. only piece i have with a big chunk of black iron. our jasper is pretty much only blood red. its got that real waxy feel.planted it in my front yard. real good juxtaposition between light brown soil and green cacti.
>>2756965Some of those aren't even jaspers. Meant to mention unakite before since epidosite grades into it. It's altered granite. Rainforest jasper is a rhyolite. Bumblebee jasper is a travertine.
>>2756968>>2756967We're cool with finding any rocks, including less flashy ones. We also know we could spend an entire week at just one site, but we don't have too long, and we're covering a lot of ground (so many states we have never been to). We spent last year in North Carolina and went to some big sites over there (emeralds and beryl at the mica mine). The mica mine was actually super cool, I want to go back there because we didn't smash open the rocks like we should have to find more. We're going late August, so I know we're in for some shit weather wise, but we're doing the planning now. Have some spots picked out like I said, just trying to find perspective from people down there. Funny you mention Galena because we have some from up here already. Really have to stop digging in lead soil though.Also hoping to find some fossils or teeth.I will have to ask him what sites he has picked out already. Completely separate note (only slightly related to artifacts)- was there a big Native American presence down there? I know up here there was, I know in the west there is, but I've never heard or read about it down south. Just interested, maybe I can find a quartz arrowhead. Another separate note, I reccomend going to the Great Lakes for rockhounding. So much fun! Found an ammonite and had a blast.
>>2756975ah, a man of culture I see..What do you think of these old stock jasper beads I picked up 'rockhounding' at this years Tucson show
>>2756976a lot of the public available sites in the southeast are seeded, specifically in the Carolinas. Many a case of someone posting how they found something there that was seeded from somewhere else out west.
>>2756977Interesting. Not sure what to make of the green but it's not jasper.
>>2756978Hmm, that sucks. I'll have to look into that! That's a good point.
>>2756976>Also hoping to find some fossils or teeth.i'm all for taking whatever i find, just be aware about fossils. you can grab all the invertebrate fossils you want. feds get involved if someone catches a person selling a vertebrate fossil. chances are you wont find shit, but if you do, just be careful who you show. bones are protected out in the wilderness.
>>2756850It needs a lot of things but I wasn't sure if it was going to be popular enough to be a proper general. Next thread I will include some resources like Mindat in the op. Maybe some Rockhounding resources too
>>2756977
>>2757072the snozzberries taste like snozzberries
Found these on my walk today. my initial thought was some kinda blueish quartzite but I'm not sure
>>2757127fun factthe blue in quartz is caused by the tindall effect, the same thing that causes the blue in the sky
>>2757127sure it's not igneous? i dont have much granite around me, but i would guess it is granite with some mica. looks more igneous than meta
>>2757169It's a loose rock from a trail so I don't know anything like the locality it came from. All I can see is it looks kinda sugary like quartzite. Nothing that looks like Mica as far as I can tell
>>2757176wet it, post another photo. its that time of night im pleasantly healing and i get curious.
>>2757177
>>2757179hmm, now i see what you mean. curious. i like it. you say its sugary, ill trust ya on that. yeah, thats probably a water-weathered quartzite piece. is the parent material pretty well embedded into the quartzite, or is more like a layer? like an onion, an ogres?
>>2757184reason i ask about layers, is because if it looks like it has a laye ror shell, id guess a geode. also do an acid test, quartzite shouldnt react right?
>>2757184I'm suspecting it might be blue Apatite. Blue Apatite has been documented in my state and has a similar texture? I don't think we have quartzite in my state at least not in abundance. I'll try a hardness test tomorrow
>>2757190>calcium>potassiumha, yeah. i think an acid test might help you identify.
>>2757191blazed again. phosphorous, duh. i beg forgiveness in these trying times.
>>2757190Dip it in muriatic acid yet?
Where do you think this basalt came from if I am in an area that is unglaciated (from Wisconsin era at least) and largely karst limestone?
>>2757510Could it possibly be shale instead?T. Same anon
>>2757511Shale is fragile and breaks into sheets. It should be obvious if it's a shale
>>2757510Water transport. If it was found with all that nice rounded quartz gravel, that's the most obvious explanation. That's assuming it wasn't brought in from somewhere as fill.
I found this dick rock.
>>2757636now cut it
