Collecting Cool Rocks! Minerals, Crystals, Fossils, Geodes, etc.

[microchick]

Wish I had stumbled upon this thread earlier!
I have been rock hounding since I was 7 years old and my parents moved to a house that set above a stream that was rock and fossil rich. They even found a whole mammoth skeleton not far from where the farm was years after we moved from there.

This past Christmas my husband gave me a tumbler and a bag of Madagascar rough semiprecious gemstones to play with. Talk about being in hog heaven!

I love the t-shirt that has the inscription 'just one more rock!'

Where we live now was once a salt sea so while there are fossils, most of them are the type you see in sand stone and shale like shells and the like. I have found some interesting rocks on our farm though. Lots of granite.

On our first wedding anniversary my husband asked me what I would like as a gift. I said a rock. To my surprise, here came a flat bed truck on our anniversary along with a skid steer that proceeded to unload a huge blue granite rock that has a beautiful vein of pink/white through it. When we retired and sold our home in IL I had the agent write up in the contract. Large Granite boulder does not stay with property. And it didn't. We managed to get it loaded on our trailer and it now sets by our door.

Some of my collection:

I found two stones like the one above in a stream bed near our home here in MO. To date I haven't been able to identify what they are in any book I have nor on line.

Some of the stones I just finished tumbling. White quartz, ambers, I think lace amethyst, and some geodes and miscellaneous sparkly things, LOL.

Orange calcite on the bottom along with geodes and a blue amber that my DH got for me as a gift. There are also amethysts in this case.

Nor have I been able to identify this stone that I found in a box of rocks I 'unearthed' at a pawn shop.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

I have a small collection, most of them are bought but some I found. Here are a few of my favorite findings:
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Found a few of these, found all the agate, found most of the geodes, found the hemimorphite

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found some of the smaller amethyst, found this huge amber, found all the quartz

I also have a few shark teeth and ray's comb fossils, but I can't find them at the moment

Here's a rock I found in Hawaii; it's a volcanic rock with crystals trapped inside:
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I love how organized your collection is. I always go in with the best of intentions and then at some point I find rocks where they aren't supposed to be and I can't remember what they are, so they go into "the mystery bin". Lol

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Wish I had stumbled upon this thread earlier!
I have been rock hounding since I was 7 years old and my parents moved to a house that set above a stream that was rock and fossil rich. They even found a whole mammoth skeleton not far from where the farm was years after we moved from there.

This past Christmas my husband gave me a tumbler and a bag of Madagascar rough semiprecious gemstones to play with. Talk about being in hog heaven!

I love the t-shirt that has the inscription 'just one more rock!'

Where we live now was once a salt sea so while there are fossils, most of them are the type you see in sand stone and shale like shells and the like. I have found some interesting rocks on our farm though. Lots of granite.

On our first wedding anniversary my husband asked me what I would like as a gift. I said a rock. To my surprise, here came a flat bed truck on our anniversary along with a skid steer that proceeded to unload a huge blue granite rock that has a beautiful vein of pink/white through it. When we retired and sold our home in IL I had the agent write up in the contract. Large Granite boulder does not stay with property. And it didn't. We managed to get it loaded on our trailer and it now sets by our door.

Some of my collection:

View attachment 2684666


View attachment 2684669

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I found two stones like the one above in a stream bed near our home here in MO. To date I haven't been able to identify what they are in any book I have nor on line.
View attachment 2684673
Some of the stones I just finished tumbling. White quartz, ambers, I think lace amethyst, and some geodes and miscellaneous sparkly things, LOL.
View attachment 2684675
Orange calcite on the bottom along with geodes and a blue amber that my DH got for me as a gift. There are also amethysts in this case.

View attachment 2684682
Nor have I been able to identify this stone that I found in a box of rocks I 'unearthed' at a pawn shop.

Wow!! Stunning collection!!! Your husband sounds like a definite keeper! What a wonderful story!

 

[microchick]

It took me 52 years to find him! But he was worth the wait! I'm keeping him!

 

[Anime2lover]

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Have you ever been walking through a park, on a hike, or walking down a beach when a rock caught your eye? One that seemed special enough that it couldn't be left behind? That's where rock collecting starts for many of us! People that go out to collect their own rocks are often called "Rock Hounds" but some of us can't stop at collecting rocks in our general area and start branching off buying, and trading rocks and minerals from all over the world!

I got the rock collecting bug really young when I kept small stones that I thought were pretty and especially loved smooth, shiny stones that had been rounded from time in the ocean as the waves and sand washed over them.

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Now that I've been collecting for many years I've acquired some really interesting specimens. Including fluorescent and even phosphorescent stones and geodes!

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I also find all of the different formations really interesting. The image below is all examples of clear quartz, a geode, clusters, points, and a tumbled stone. All very different formations and clarity, yet they are the same!

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Some of my fossils and petrified wood.

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I would love to see some of what you collect too!

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This is my lucky find. Found it last year while simply walking along a river up where our camp ground is. It is double sided. But this side has the clearest points on it.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

This is my lucky find. Found it last year while simply walking along a river up where our camp ground is. It is double sided. But this side has the clearest points on it.View attachment 2684797

Wow! Incredible find!

 

[Anime2lover]

Wow! Incredible find!

Thanks. It was part of a larger rock that I had my grandpa break open. I got one piece, my sister got another, and my grandma got the other.

 

[Anime2lover]

Fossils that I both found and bought.

Two sides of the same fossil

 

[Anime2lover]

A bunch of my other smaller finds

Any idea what these two pics of the same rock are??

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Fossils that I both found and bought.View attachment 2684869View attachment 2684870View attachment 2684871View attachment 2684875View attachment 2684876View attachment 2684877View attachment 2684878View attachment 2684879
Two sides of the same fossilView attachment 2684872View attachment 2684873

Nice variety! I see crinoids, brachiopods, and sharks teeth! Very cool. I'm getting all of my fossils together to organize on my fossil shelf! Hopefully I'll finish tonight.