Any rockhounds out there in BYC Land?

[sweeterdeeter42]

I think the subject line speaks for itself. Anyone else out there like me? Let me hear your stories.

 

[redhen]

And i want to see your pics...

 

[philter4]

I will try to post photos later but I rockhound as often as I can, especially if it is in the desert. I love to go out and get ideas for my dioramas and while I am out my father and I go to places where we can find different minerals and rocks. It is a great way to spend time with him and we both get out and see some very nice places. There is an old copper mine about 2 hours from my house just over the state line in Nevada where I love to go, there are not only all sorts of wildflowers and reptiles but all of the different copper minerals and old buildings and slag piles to go through and find different rocks and mineral samples. I also collect fossils, I spend about 1/2 of my time in South Florida where there are some fantastic fossil shark teeth and mammoth molars, once I even found a fossilized turtle shell, both the plastron and carapace were complete. Sometimes while scuba diving for shark teeth I find some really incredible shells which I give to my mom for her shell collection.

 

[Jenlyn9483]

Rock hound here! Wow so unusual the different hobbies we share here on BYC. I go to the Great smokey Mountains and gem mine. My favorite spot is a place just south of Franklin, can't think of the name at the present time. I have a big container full of my finds. right now most of them are in a huge Blenko vase I found at a thift store that matches two other blenkos I have they are the rocks I put in the bottom of the vase to hold the flower stems in place.

 

[Jenlyn9483]

 

[ChicksterJo]

I love rockhounding, especially at beaches. Last summer I went to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in the Keeweenaw Peninsula, hoping to find some agates. I found a few small pieces. A little kid found the best agate!

Supposedly there's a better chance of finding a good agate after a big storm, but we left as a storm was about to hit. I recently went to the Philippines and one of the beaches I went to had sand that was just rough coral pieces. I found some small blue corals on shore. Here in the high desert there are different types of agates and rocks. I want to go rockhounding near the Pearblossom Fwy outside of Palmdale sometime soon before it gets too hot.

 

[philter4]

Quote:
If you ever get up north of San Francisco, there is a tiny beach town called Salinas. If you go to Agate Beach there is an amber colored agate called oil drop agate, it is a really nice rock to find. Each piece looks like amber with a tiny drop of oil inside it. It is actually an agate that has a small amount of CO2 in it and under pressure the CO2 gets pushed into the middle and has a dark grey color which looks black through the agate.

The blue coral is a very cool piece of coral, it is brown when alive but as it pulls calcium out of the water to make the skeleton it also pulls copper out of the sea water and that stains the coral blue. It only shows the blue color after death though, but it can be any shade from a light pale blue all the way to a dark almost navy blue.

If you live in Lancaster, do you ever go out east to the desert and find the fluorescent minerals? I try to go down there at least every other year, I lived in San Diego for 13 years before I moved to Florida, but while there I would go to the desert as often as I could.

 

[ChicksterJo]

Thanks for the info. If I get to visit my cousins in San Jose I will try to take a trip to that agate beach. That's interesting about the coral...I know that the beads made out of blue coral are kinda expensive. They just look cool and are nice conversation starters I suppose. I haven't been hounding near Lancaster or in the Mojave because it usually gets too hot once I remember then when winter comes I never seem to have the time (or I don't make time). Whereabouts would I find the fluorescent minerals around here?