This is just a small tutorial for those of you needing a little help getting started and are visiting or live in these areas.

The ID/OR borders are rich with many forms of agate.  There’s also jasper, opal, petrified wood, queenstone and crystals, and today I’m just giving a picture tour about finding a few of these things  in these desert areas.

The first thing you need to know is the difference between quartzite, agate, and jasper.  Quartzite is often just called quartz. You can tell quartz because it has granuals. It looks like someone took sugar and pressed it together real tightly.  Agate often looks like quartz a bit, but you won’t see granuals. It looks like wax. It is also translucent, and sometimes even clear.  Opal is much the same as agate but looks a little glassier than agate. It also breaks easier than agate.

You can get agates off the ground or find stone outcrops with agate in them in these areas.  What you are looking for is going to be very different from what you get when you cut the agate into slabs.  The outside is usually rather plain, other than you will be able to see little telltale spots of inclusions sometimes.  Occasionally you will find one that actually looks the same on the outside as it does on the inside, but not usually.   The picture below shows what you find in the field:

This is what you actually will find.

Now up close you will see more of the waxy look – and in a few spots you can see through the surface far enough to see there are inclusions. But all in all, these are not “wow” rocks when you see them other than if you pick up one that is a good size. And – once you know the potential for what’s inside of that agate.  And – here’s where the fun comes in. Both of these  “oh hum” rocks were sliced – and here’s the result:

Doesn't look like the same rock, does it?

Here’s the other rock cut in half. If it were slabbed, it would have some gorgeous potential for a cab along the plume.

Second rock cut in half

The picture doesn’t do this one justice but you can see a plume across the top and some plummy areas at the bottom – how big does a nice area have to be to make a splendid cabochon?  The picture also makes it look like the middle is indented  – it’s not. It’s cut flat across.  The agate in the center is quite clear and you can see fairly deep into this stone.

There are agates, of course, that are worth more than others.  At Graveyard Point you can find agates with a plume that is almost mossy instead of plummy, even though it’s still referred to as plume.  If you find a nice one of these that has a pink or purplish color – you have a valuable stone.   I can’t be sure if the color of this specimen from Graveyard Point will show up in your browser, but these are the colors that you can get – and want from graveyard point.

GY plume is more mossy than Owyhee plume

The pink is rare out there.  Most of the agate is the white, browns, and yellows of the Owyhee agates.  That’s why pink pieces are prizes.

Sometimes you can find tube agate at Graveyard Point. These agates are great for either cabinet specimens or cabs.  The one in the picture below is tube agate that is not embedded in other agate,  when the tubes are embedded in a clear agate they can make awesome cabochons.  This one is a cabinet specimen.

It's real easy to identify Graveyard Point Tube agate

As you can see in the picture, when you find a piece of tube agate like this, you aren’t going to need much help in identifying it. I don’t think I’ve seen anything that looks anything like tube agate.

There are spots that you can find fossil leaves in the Owyhees, too. They are fragile as the matrix rocks break easily.  The rock is light brown to yellow, and looks like regular mudstone. It breaks into 1/2 to 1″ thicknesses.  If you see an outcrop of this stone, you will usually find a pile of broken chunks under the outcrop.  Finding the fossils is as easy as sorting through the broken pieces. They are usually rectangular in shape.

Where you find one there will be a lot more.

Another thing you will find in the Graveyard Point and Owyhee reservoir area is petrified wood. Some of the wood is agatized as in the pictures below and some looks almost like wood instead of stone.  The piece below is about  7″   X 10″.  It’s holding my rockhound books upright on my bookshelf.  The views are from the end of the piece and from the outer edge of the half round.

The outside of a half round.

Even though this piece is completely agatized, you can still tell that it was once wood when you see it.  Many of the petrified wood specimens of that area do not leave any doubt they are…or were wood.  You will usually be pretty sure of what you have even if it’s your first time out hunting when you find petrified wood.

Here is the end view of this piece.

You can still see some of the rings even without grinding or polishing.

The rings don’t show up as well in the photo as they do when you are looking at the actual rock, but you get the idea.

The agatized wood in one specimen I got is black and not as quality – but the bark is spectacularly petrified.

The bark on this one is spectacular!

Finds like this one make hunting in the Owyhees a lot of fun.

There’s two other rare finds in the Owyhees that you might just run across when you are out there sometime.

You could find Jessie and I out there!

OH yeah – if you find US out there you just gotta know – we’re gonna be dirty!

And we’re gonna be grinning ear to ear — even Rickie!

Rickie my rockhound best pal.

I sure hope that this has helped some of you who are getting ready to go wander around the Owyhee desert areas.  Don’t forget to check out the RHS1 photo gallery for more pictures of what our members are finding and where they are finding it!  Thanks for reading.

Please remember – our open areas are under constant threat of closure. Please help keep these areas clean and healthy. Fill in all of your holes when you dig and if you pack it in – pack it out.  Help keep these wonderful playgrounds open for everyone to enjoy.

Tags: agate hunting, agates, Graveyard Point agate, Owyhee agate, Owyhee fossils, petrified wood, rock and gem hunters, rock and gem hunting tips, rockhounds, tube agate

While experienced hunters thoroughly enjoy a good day of garnet hunting, you don’t have to be an experienced hunter to find these dazzling little gemstones. In fact, they are probably the best stone for the inexperienced rockhound to begin hunting for. These gemstones are quite common and can be found in many US states and countries around the world. The rock which bears the garnet is very often peppered with the stones, too, so once you find a good garnet bearing area you will easily be able to take a very healthy cache home with you.

Garnets come in many varieties and the type of matrix rocks vary as well.  The most desirable crystals will be a deep wine red to purplish, pink, or brilliant green. Even smaller crystals are quite distinct in their natural form and you will be able to recognize them when you see them. Matrix rock may be about any form of rock in the area.

Your first step in garnet hunting, as with all gemstones, is to check your maps and guides. When it comes to garnets, I never worry too much about a location being “picked over” as the stones are usually so plentiful. Next you will want to make sure that you pack all of the equipment you need to gather the stones.

You will want to take your rock pick and mallet and small chisels (an eighth inch blade is usually plenty big) for any stones you find in the matrix rocks. I use these a bit at garnet locations as every once in a while I will see a stone still embedded in the matrix rock that I just can’t pass up. Many times the rock bearing the garnet is soft and the stones can be removed easily with a small flat screwdriver or knife blade. A mallet can be used to break the rocks apart to find the stones. This is actually the hard way to get the garnets, however, and I don’t usually resort to bothering with the rock itself. The tools that I use most frequently hunting for this particular type of gemstone is a spaghetti colander, a screen, and an army issue fold up shovel.

Over time garnets erode from the matrix rock. By scooping the dirt in the area of the gem bearing rock and sifting it in the colander you can easily find handfuls of gems. I use a colander for hunting gem rock as the holes are about the right size to let the stones which are smaller than I am interested in keeping fall through. If you want to spend money at a hardware store for special screens, they do have different sized meshes that will allow you to choose how large the gems must be for them to be trapped by the screen. If an area seems to have been picked over, by digging down deeper you can usually find the stones that fell and were covered before the area became popular to hunters.

After “panning” the rock area, I like to also pan the nearby streams for the gems. Garnets will wash downstream from their source over time and are not as heavy as some other minerals so you don’t need to dig too deep to find good quality stones. Water currents can erode the natural facets of the stone however, so you may find many of the crystals in water are much smoother than those from the actual rock area, depending on how long they have been there. When I choose a spot in a stream I will use the colander again so I am only getting stones I want to keep.  A gold pan works fine, too, but you will find yourself wasting time picking gems out that are smaller than you really are interested in keeping.

The normal sized screen I use for concentrated gem areas in streams where the stream bed is literally pink with small garnets. You will see this in many garnet areas. Most of these little garnets are not of gem size or quality, but they make great craft supplies. These I scoop up in the screen and just put in a bucket. Later at home I separate the small stones from the rest of the sand while watching television or talking on the phone.

Once you have found a few nice gemstones to use in jewelry, you will want to read up on panning for gold so you can find a nugget that one of your new gemstones will look nice with in a ring or pendant.

©2011 Sally Taylor

Tags: garnet hunting, garnets, gem hunting, gemstones, rock and gem hunters, rockhounds

Well for those of you who like to quake with terror (pardon the pun) over the amount of earthquakes we are experiencing – we’re going to let you rant a little bit this year. We had a high number of quakes in 2010 of all levels except for 8 magnitudes, which were mercifully below current average levels. The rest were high, and at some magnitudes outrageously over average.

Before anyone starts to panic, though, we have to consider the whole picture. While magnitude 5 quakes were way over average for the year, many of these shakers were not isolated events. They were aftershocks of massive quakes which hit at very shallow depths. Because of our current magnetic pole shift land has been moving a little bit and the reverberations of large quakes were a bit stronger and lasted a bit longer as ground shifted adjusting to the current polar shift. If anyone were studying the shift in the poles, they may have expected as much. Mass aligns with the magnetic pole and when that pole shifts mass does, too. When the magnetic pole migrates far enough from the geographical pole centrifugal force will eventually shift the mass as it realigns. This means crustal movement is going to take place during a pole shift. Eventually the geographical pole will be shifted back into proximity of the magnetic pole.

Now we have to look at the polar shift to dispel a lot of bunk you probably have heard coming from pole shift alarmists. We are not all gonna die. Okay?  First of all, we are not talking about a complete flip of the magnetic poles. That is a possibility, but not likely and it won’t be as spectacular an event as some like to paint it up to be. The magnetic pole shifts periodically. The last shift was in the mid 1800′s. They happen every hundred to couple of hundred years. They do not kill everyone and everything on the planet. New mountains don’t crop up overnight, mass floods don’t occur. There is turbulent weather but not on the scale you would see in a Hollywood Disaster Film.

Magnetism does not “disappear” during a magnetic pole shift or even during a polar reversal. For a time the poles split and you get multiple poles and a lot of localized anomalies, but the magnetism does not just disappear. Even if it did disappear temporarily our atmosphere is quite thick. The radiation that people fear would have to travel through the equivalent of 10 feet of concrete to reach us. Interference to TV, Radio, and any satellite communications would be upset, but if being without your cell phone or TV satellite dish for a little while is your idea of a life altering disaster, congratulations. I wish all my problems were that trivial.

So for everyone who loves real science and gets sick of the fear mongering – this is a once in a lifetime chance to study how your planet reacts to magnetic pole shifting. If you are more into astronomy than earth science it may interest you to watch the pole shifts now occurring throughout our solar system at the present time.

Before listing the stats on this year’s quakes, here is a rundown on where the averages that we use come from for those of you who are new to these reports.

About The USGS and RHS1 Averages:

The USGS statistical averages are averages compiled from 1990 to 2000.  That is when global tracking was achieved and we have no way of knowing for sure how accurately those statistics represent numbers before that time.  There are scientists who did tracking, but there were also many very volatile areas that aren’t populated that were impossible to track before.  From old records we may want to  assume that there have been more recently, but there is no way to know for sure.

We also use an RHS1 average which is 3 year statistical average which was drawn from my three year quake report from  2006, 07, 08  that I will compare the quarterly statistics to, so we can see a more current trend.  At the end of this year we will add this year’s average to the three year average, making an average of 4  of 5 years since the middle of the current decade.  If data can be retrieved for 2009, a year in which our site was being rebuilt from hacker/virus injection damage, we will add those in to make a current half decade statistical average.

2010 GLOBAL EARTHQUAKE STATISTICS

These statistics do not include quakes of under 5 magnitude. There are just too many quakes under 5 mag for us to have resources and time to track these smaller quakes.  Magnitude 5 is the classification at which we start to consider quakes strong as well. Damage is light and rare for quakes under 5 magnitudes. Death tolls usually don’t occur until magnitude 6 and in the years that RHS1 has been tracking quakes only one death has been reported resulting from a magnitude 5 earthquake.

8 Magnitude and Stronger:
We had one this year.  The USGS average is 1, if any per year.  The RHS1 average is two per year. We are holding steady at the USGS low average for these massive quakes and 50% for the RHS1 average. With more quakes happening at shallower depths, the drop in this average is a very good thing.

7 Magnitude and Stronger:
We experienced a whopping 20 of these shakers this year. That exceeds the USGS yearly average of 17 by 3 bringing us to 117% of average.  The RHS1 average of 11 was also exceeded by almost double the average occurrence rate leaving us with a 81%  increase.  What a magnitude 7 quake can do when it hits at a depth of only 10 kms was witnessed in Haiti early in 2010.

6 Magnitude and Stronger:
We experienced  136 of these strong quakes in 2010.  The USGS average is 134 per year giving us an increase of only 1% from average rates.  RHS1 average is 159 annual mag 6 quakes per year so at only 85% of the recent average for this quake,  occurrences of this magnitude of quake dropped  a whole 15% from the recent average number. This figure is a bit surprising in light of the number of aftershocks that the two most destructive quakes caused.

5 Magnitude and Stronger:
There were 1684 of these quakes during 2010!  USGS average is 1319 per year leaving us a 27% increase in these quakes. The RHS1 average  is only 1275 per year which means that the average yearly number of these quakes has fallen since 2006.  2010  surpasses the RHS1 average by 32% – almost a full third more than usual in the last half of the first decade of the 21st century.

As stated before, hundreds of the 5 magnitude quakes were actually aftershocks of the 7 mag and Chile 8 mag quakes early in the year.  A few of the 6 magnitude quakes were also just aftershocks, so all in all, we didn’t have that abnormal a year even though these figures are high and will pull the 4 year average up just a notch on the RHS1 4 year average which I will be figuring soon. If the quakes continue at high rates we’ll see that pattern develop over the next few years. For now, it seems that, while earthquake occurrences are high for the year, most of the attention to them was caused by the shallow depths rather than the amount of quakes.

The deeper a quake is, the less it will be felt at ground level. A 7 magnitude quake happening 500 km below the surface may barely be felt, if it is at all, while a magnitude 4 happening at just a few kilometers below the surface may feel  more like a 5 magnitude quake. With the crustal shifting we’ve experienced this year, many quakes occurred at depths of 10 and 35 km. That means that more damage has been caused than usual and more attention has been given to earthquakes than usual. Most of the alarm is due to illusions of more prevalent shaking than actual increases of shaking other than the fact that the large, shallow quakes have caused more aftershocks due to crustal movement and they have also occurred at shallow levels where they were more noticeable than they would have been otherwise.

You can find continuing updates on earthquakes in the Earthwatch section of RHS1 forums.

Tags: 2010 earthquake statistics, earth science, Earth Watch, Earthquake watch, Earthquakes, Geology events, Natural Disasters, rockhounds, rockhoundstation1.com

Serious gold has been found in about 3 out of every 5 states in the US.  While there is still untold amounts of gold to be found, however, it’s not as easy as it was in the 1800′s to find open land to prospect.  You can jump right in and start fishing through streams for a cache, but it can also be a risky and disappointing way to go about any serious prospecting.  There are a few things to consider before loading up the mule and heading off to the mountains that will greatly increase your odds of success – and decrease your odds of ending up in court.

Just because a mine or claim is no longer worked does not mean that the gold is gone.  That particular property, however, might still be off limits to hunters.  Public lands are not always a free for all gold prospecting areas, either.  Some public land contains claims and other areas are off limits to hunting at all.  Some areas are restricted hunting, meaning you can use a pan, but not a dredge or sluice, or other equipment.   If you are thinking that you can just slip into off-limits areas and slip out without notice, you are taking one healthy risk to your wallet or freedom.   By getting some research under your belt before diving into the creeks with your prospecting gear, you can avoid not only fines, arrests, or being shot for claim jumping, you can also get a pretty good idea where your best bet is to find a good productive placer.  The search for records can be time consuming, but it is a “must” do for anyone serious about gold prospecting.

While you will want to know the ownership status of the land you wish to hunt, it’s not going to do you much good to hunt if there isn’t a decent amount of gold to be found in the area.  While you may have heard that gold can be found just about anywhere, a few flakes dropped by glaciers aren’t really going to make a hunt worthwhile.  You should start your search by studying mining records to find areas from which good amounts of gold have already been found. State Bureau of Mines offices will have information about mining in the areas you are researching.  Remember, thousands of people already have searched the country for gold.  You aren’t likely to make much headway in new and untouched territory.  Your best bet is to stick with known territories. While some people believe that areas that contain mines are tapped out, this is rarely the case. Gold in these areas still works its way down into streams and forms placers downhill from the sources.

The city office in the area you are researching will have records of current mining claims as well as records of claims that are now abandoned.  Once you study these and are content with pursuing prospecting in an area, you will want to do another bit of study.  The BLM offices have maps containing land status plats that show the ownership of public lands. Their offices also have mining and mineralogy maps. These offices are where you find out where you are free to prospect.

Claims  become abandoned for many reasons.  Some might be abandoned because the area had been worked until the claim quit producing.  Others may just have never been fruitful in the first place.  Others could be abandoned due to other difficulties that the owner encountered, such as inability to get to and from the claim, illness or death, and a myriad other reasons.  If a claim is abandoned and the land is open to prospecting, you might be able to pick up the claim for a low price and continue work on it. If it has been a considerable amount of time since a claim has been worked, it may contain fresh gold which continues to wash down into placer areas over time.

Local assay offices are sometimes willing to provide information about their own records of gold assays from local area claims, although sometimes you will be charged for records searches.  If the claim produced gold recently enough, someone in the office might just even remember that it produced well.

A bit of geological study about gold is always a good idea for those who are extremely serious about prospecting, too.  What you learn may just help you identify “new” localities near the older, known ones.

While these studies can be time consuming, most areas have several months a year (in some places most of the year) which are not suitable for hunting in the field so these are excellent months to do your “indoor” prospecting.

Once you have the information you need about open land and available claims, you are then ready to go out into the field and try your luck in the 2010 Gold Rush.

Click Here For The Best In Prospecting Equipment

Tags: Geology, gold claims, gold panning, Gold prospecting, rock and gem hunters, rockhounds

For over one hundred and eighty five years, the legends of a rich source of silver have brought prospectors and luck seekers to Wisconsin, and for over one hundred and eighty five years the location of this vein of native silver has remained a mystery. The mystery found it’s beginning in 1820 when an Indian told settlers of a vein of silver so pure and wide that chunks the size of a man’s hand could be cut from it. Other Indians, angered by the telling of the story, discounted it as a myth and settlers duly ignored the tale – for a time, anyway.

When the lands of the Lake Superior area were purchased in 1842 and digging and blasting for metals began with lust, the people became interested again this legend. By this time the Indians, who felt these actions were an affront to the Great Spirit, were not talking. The existence of a magnificent vein was confirmed by Benjamin Armstrong, the son-in-law of Chief Buffalo, who claimed that one elder of the tribe would be sent for silver and come back with it after a few days, but this elder had claimed that the Spirit was angry and had caused him to forget where the location was although he could still describe it somewhat.

In the late1880′s another Indian was credited with knowledge of the location of the silver. Old Ice Feathers, a hermit who lived on an island in Lake Namekagon and would later become known as Chief Namekagon, was known to have taken handsome caches of silver to three men in Ashland. Sam Campbell, a timber cruiser who lived a few miles from Lake Namekagon, had heard tell that the Chief had started out with these three men to show them the location but turned back when a black bear crossed their paths, an omen of ill boding according to Chief Namekagon. The chief was found dead, possibly murdered, not too long after that near Marengo Station. Whether the location of the silver had become known to another before his death has not been revealed. Many others have searched and some claimed to have known at least bits about it though. Unfortunately stories of silver always seem to place the mine in different locations.

One farmer named Johnson told of sheltering and feeding the Chief for a night during bad weather. The Chief had no silver with him at the time, but had silver with him when he got to Ashland the next day. The placement of the mine has resultantly been thought by some to rest between the old Johnson property and Ashland. Did the Chief hear Johnson approaching and hide silver he had in his possession, though, or did he actually acquire it on the way to Ashland from Johnson’s property?

Another story is that of a logger named Hoeppner who claimed to have found the mine and showed the proof, a chunk of silver the “size of a man’s hand”, to a friend. Hoeppner had claimed to have successfully tracked another man to the silver. He and his friend were unable to locate the place again, however. This story places the lost silver close to Copper Falls State Park, and north of Bad River Gap.

Many thoughts have been aired throughout the last century and a half about possible locations and there is no lack of rumors and legends of the knowledge of the silver. In a land so rich in mineral, there is also a possibility that more than one lost mine exists. The only detail that holds from one story to the next is that the opening of the mine is just big enough for a person to squeeze through, then widens into a cavern.

While people periodically turn up with caches of fine native silver and claims of knowing the location of the vein, for some reason the location still seems a mystery. Perhaps the Indians were correct in thinking that it was the anger of the Spirits that makes those who find it forget how to return there.

If you decide to take a trip to Wisconsin to look for this lost silver location, be ready to keep some foolproof notes on the location if you find it. Perhaps you will want to fill your bag with this fine silver as well, just in case you, too, find yourself confounded about how to get back to it again.

©2010, Sally Taylor

Tags: lost mine legends, lost mines, lost silver mines, rock and gem hunters, rockhounds, silver, silver prospecting

Earthquake stats for the year so far have been pretty shaky indeed.  As always, below is included an explanation of where averages come from.  Below that you will find the statistics for the third quarter and the year totals so far.   It’s been a very interesting year all the way around.

About The USGS and RHS1 Averages:

The USGS statistical averages are averages compiled from 1990 to 2000.  That is when global tracking was achieved and we have no way of knowing for sure how accurately those statistics represent numbers before that time.  There are scientists who did tracking, but there were also many very volatile areas that aren’t populated and it was impossible to track before.  From old records we can assume that there have been more recently, but there is no way to know for sure.

We also use an RHS1 average which is 3 year statistical average which was drawn from my three year quake report from  2006, 07, 08  that I will compare the quarterly statistics to, so we can see a more current trend.  At the end of this year we will add this year’s average to the three year average, making an average of 4  of 5 years since the middle of the current decade.  If data can be retrieved for 2009, a year in which our site was being rebuilt from hacker/virus injection damage, we will add those in to make a current half decade statistical average.

8 Magnitude and Stronger:
We had none during the second or third quarter.  We had one in the first quarter.
The USGS average is 1, if any per year.  The RHS1 average is two per year.
We are holding steady at low average for these massive quakes.

7 Magnitude and Stronger:
We experienced a whopping 9 of these shakers this quarter bringing the year total in the third quarter up to 17 – which is the USGS yearly average for these massive quakes.  RHS1 3 year average is 11 annually, a  35% drop from the USGS average.  It looks like these are going to break both averages this year.
.

6 Magnitude and Stronger:
We experienced  37 of these strong quakes in the third quarter.  With  only 29 of these quakes in the second quarter and a the high number of 48 during the first quarter, we have now experienced 114 mag 6 quakes already as of the end of the 3rd quarter.  The USGS average is 134 per year.  RHS1 average is  159 annual mag 6 quakes per year.  Only 20 quakes in the forth quarter will see the USGS average but 45 still need to occur to reach the RHS1 average.  It looks like we will be considering this year a high or a low according to which average you want to look at.

5 Magnitude and Stronger:
There were 401 of these quakes during the 3rd quarter of the year.  We experienced only 285 of these strong shakers second quarter – but we had extremely high numbers the first quarter – 565 of them!  At 1251 total for this year as of the end of the third quarter, we will exceed both averages this year.   USGS average is 1319 per year. The RHS1 average  is only 1275 per year.  Judging from my recordings so far of the 4th quarter, we already have.  The only question left is by how many we will be exceeding averages.

During the first few quarters of the year most quakes were happening at depths of 10 and 35 km, indicating a crustal shift was going on.  In the third quarter there were still quakes occurring at these depths but not in such a profusion as earlier in the year.  The depths are becoming disperse again with no real perceivable patterns to them.

The high number of quakes this year are mainly due to some strong and lengthy aftershocks occurring after the major 7 and 8 magnitude quakes experienced near the beginning of the year.

Tags: earth science, Earth Watch, Earthquake watch, Earthquakes, Geology, Geology events, Natural Disasters

Finding a great agate or piece of jasper is a thrill for any rockhound, but being able to identify exactly what it is that has been found is quite a headache for the beginner. These headaches can be relieved very easily though with just a little bit of knowledge about the different quartz group stones.

Agate and jasper are actually chalcedony, which in turn is cryptocrystalline quartz. All are SIO2. When you pick up a stone you can rule out that it is a piece of regular massive quartz quite quickly just by looking to see if you can see the grains of the stone. If you can see grains, you do not have an agate or jasper. Most likely, what you have then is massive quartz or some other type of stone. Many new rockhounds will mistake massive quartz for a piece of agate, so don’t feel bad if you do. It’s a very frequent mistake.

Jasper and agate will appear to be made of wax. If the rock is just plain clear to white translucent with no markings or patterns, it is considered chalcedony. If it is opaque, that is, if you cannot see into or through it, it is jasper. Jasper is most frequently earth tones or red but you can find jasper in just about any color or color combination and it can contain some very lively patterns. One well known form of jasper is called “picture” jasper, and just as the name suggests, the lines and markings look just like a scenic picture of mountains and valleys or forests and so on. Geometric patterns are also common in jasper stones.

If a stone is an agate, it will be translucent as is chalcedony, but an agate will have patterns. Most commonly, agates have bands, and are appropriately called banded agate. Sometimes the bands are also translucent, sometimes some are opaque. There are many agates named to describe how they look, such as plume, orbicular, or flower and many that are named for the place they are found, such as Dryhead or Lake Superior. For instance, moss agate is a clear to semi-clear agate that looks like moss was embedded in the stone. No two agates are alike and many fantastically patterned stones will not have specific type or place names.

There are also stones which you will find that have both jasper and agate in them. Both the opaque and translucent parts of these stones will appear waxy. These are often referred to as jasp-agate. Once you become familiar with the look of both jasper and agate, you will be able to recognize jasp-agate with no problems. One other stone that can be confused with agate or jasper is opal.

Opal will have flashes of color if it is precious opal. It can be also be common opal which is plain translucent or opaque and a just about any color or a mix of colors. Opal generally looks more glassy than waxy, and it is much more brittle and breakable than agate or jasper.

If you still aren’t sure when you find a rock if it is jasper, agate, or opal, you should take it with you and ask someone about it. Your local rock shop or club or even a jeweler’s shop can identify it for you. You will have few problems identifying these stones after the first or second time. Once you learn to identify these basic stones, you will be surprised how many different types of gemstones you will start noticing on your hunts.

© Sally Taylor, RHS1

Tags: agate, agate hunting, gemstones, jasper, jasper hunting, Mineral Identification, opal, quartz, rock and gem hunters, rockhounds

After the first dig, Jessie and I just couldn’t resist taking a second run back there right away. We had another person with us, too – she had seen Jessie’s cache from the first trip and was gung ho to try her hand at digging a few herself. This time the weather was warm but not as excruciating as the first time in.

I did some studying before this trip and found that our spot is in the Southern portion of a formation that runs all the way up to highway 26 and possibly even further North than that. Not having a lot of time to explore this time, we settled for just going back to the dig knowing that we’d find something. Something turned out to be a lot better than our first try at the pit.

Beginner’s luck doesn’t quite explain Jessie’s luck in finding a major pocket. She again had the biggest load to carry back to the car this time. While I had the biggest stone of the day – Jess once again topped me out with a spectacular green moss crystal. Her friend,Gina, was amazed and thrilled with her cache. While she came along expecting to find a few crystals, she was not prepared for the size of the stones she was finding. To tell the truth – neither were we.

For all Gina’s friends back home she said would never believe she actually found those herself — yeah, she did – and they were AWESOME!  I didn’t get pics of hers, but they are about the same trend as the ones in the pics below.

That said – we took some more pics for you all to enjoy.

These are my favorites for the day. The one on the left is the biggest single crystal of the day.

The crystal on the left was the biggest single of the day. It’s not the best crystal, however. It’s got a bit too many of the watery feathers in it to be clear at the size it is. The medium size crystals are much clearer than the larger ones.

These are Jessie's favorites from the day.

Jessie  had the biggest cluster (top left) and a lot of beautiful medium sized clear stones. She also got a lot of so-so stones that will probably end up being the start of what I call “driveway rock” collection. Those are the stones you toss in the yard somewhere for decoration. Non-hunters seem to love looking at these piles and picking something out for themselves to take home. There’s always party favors somewhere when you visit a rockhound’s home.

Let’s move on to the real prize of the day – also one of Jessie’s finds:

Gorgeous water clear crystal with green moss.

I have never seen a true moss quartz crystal before, and perhaps that isn’t the right technical name for it, but one look at that picture and I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s about the best description to be had for this gorgeous stone. It’s close to an inch wide and there is a crust, as you can see, but promises to be a stunning pendant piece when the layer is removed.

We did explore around the rock formation above the dig up by the main road this time. The view was spectacular. Almost spectacular enough to make me actually like being in California for awhile.

Veiw from the rock formation above the dig site.

And of course – Rickie had a great time and enjoyed a little more sun and hiking this time with the weather a bit cooler than last time. I think his smile says more about how the day went than anything else I can say.

Love this guys smile - he says it all for all three of us.

Um….if anyone should make it out to Copperopolis and find a folding army shovel……..It’s mine. Could ya let me know it’s been located?   I’ll be back for it – trust me  on that one!

Tags: CA, gemstones, Geology, rock and gem hunters, rockhound field trips, rockhound photo gallery, Rockhounding Copperopolis, rockhounds

Finding an ancient stash of coins or metal relics has always been exciting, but if a coin was corroded enough, there wasn’t a lot of historical significance that could be tapped from that coin. Advancements in technology are allowing coins to tell tales we never had access to before with old methods of coin analysis.

Using new applications of X-ray fluorescence and isotope analysis, and specialized software and reference materials from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, scientists have at their fingertips a means of nondestructive evaluation analyze coins while extracting vital data about the coin which was previously unavailable to them using older and more destructive methods of analysis.

Coins can now be correctly attributed to the particular ruler when corrosion leaves questions about the origin of the coin, but using the new methods of calibration, scientists can also fingerprint the ores from which the coin was fashioned. Because metals differ from location to location, by fingerprinting the metal the coin is composed of, scientists are able to use the new technologies and methods of calibration to tell where the metal in the coin came from.

By putting together the rulers coins were minted under and location from which the metal originated archaeologists have a means to place the dates of mining industry and find out more about a culture’s commerce than they could ever uncover before. They can also do so with unprecedented accuracy. Tests run on coins have already shown that the mines of Arabia operational much earlier than presumed, although it is still a question whether the Romans had moved to the region earlier than presumed or or whether the mines were already running when they arrived. The interaction between Romans and Arabian culture was going on earlier than supposed.

Fingerprinting metal artifacts is likely to lead to some very startling discoveries about early mining and trade. Perhaps it won’t be long before we find which far away culture was mining the copper of Northern Michigan over six thousand years ago. Is the who-done-it novel about to succumb to a new breed of archaeological reports?

Tags: analyzing artifacts, archaeology, Geology, human history, RHS1 News, rockhounds

Last week I took my Niece out for a first real rockhound excursion.  Jessie is in her late twenties so this wasn’t a “give a little kid their first taste” trip.  She’s randomly looked for rocks when she’s been where she sees things she likes, but this was her first real down and honest “lets go get these things” type of trip.  I’d already been to the site so I knew that we were in for a good day and was pretty excited about the trip myself.

It was around 10:00, clear, and sunny when we got to the hill and it was pretty obvious that early that we were in for some heat later on.   Here’s the view from the dig site:

The pointed rocks on the outcrop on top above the site almost looked like they were gigantic coated crystals of some sort themselves. If it hadn't been so darned hot I might have gone and checked those out.

We really enjoyed having this great bit of scenery to look at when we headed for a break in the shade.

That early, a lot of the site was still in the shade so we started out on a comfortable dig.  The ground at the pit was dry and a little harder than I’d have liked, but with a hammer, crowbar, garden claw, and shovels we were able to get through enough of the rocky clots to to reap some good rewards.  Around noon the sun was starting to make life rough for us and there was no longer any shade at the pit. Now and again we’d wander to a shady spot and do a little scraping around but wandered back to dig some more when the shaded location didn’t produce.

RIcki had a good morning exploring, but when the sun started getting high, it didn’t take him long to decide where he was going to spend the hotter hours of the day.

Part of Ricki's winning fight against bone cancer is a lot of interesting hikes and fresh air.

We enjoyed most of the wildlife we saw, but this next little guy didn’t get the same reaction that the cute little dear playing along the roadsides did.

This guy startled us when he climbed out from under a rock while we were digging

After taking a few minutes to try to figure out what kind of spider he was and snapping a picture of him, he was escorted onto the shovel and off to a spot far enough away to ensure he wouldn’t be sneaking back to the pit.  As hot as it was getting, he probably was glad to be where he could crawl off under a log to hide for awhile.

By  mid afternoon the heat and sun were getting the best of us and we’d finally had enough and decided to go back up to the rig and have some lunch and be on our way. Back at the rig we noticed this odd tree formation.

This tree formation looks just like the devil sitting on a stump playing a fiddle. Was he waiting for us to sell our souls for a good strike?

Even without knowing yet that I had a hole in my bag and was leaking out a few crystals on the walk back to the rig (Big oops), the devil didn’t stand a chance of a deal because there were plenty enough crystals between the two of  us for Jess and I to call it a pretty successful day:

These are some of my finds for the day. There are a few close ups of a couple of them in the photo gallery

Jessie had some of that good ole beginners luck that we’re all so familiar with and took home about three times as many as I did – she got the biggest and the best of the day, too.   Of course, I was a light weight in all the heat and sun and took more breaks than she did so she deserved the heaping cache she took home.

We made few more more stops on the way home.  One was the Milton Cemetery.  That place was spooky even in the daylight.  On the road near the cemetery, Jessie found a piece of jasper (might be chert, I didn’t look at it that well) that was a greenish blue with tan orbs in it.  It reminded me somewhat of Bruneau Jasper.

Anyway – for you haunted cemetery lovers — here’s a few glimpses of the cemetery.  There are a few inhabited homes in the area but for the most part, there is nothing around to suggest there ever was a town here.

The Cemetery Main Gate

Here’s a shot of one section in back of the cemetery.  Behind it you can see some of the hills in the area.  Definitely would like to go back and check those out a little bit.  They are part of the same rock formation that the dig site is so there might be some good hunting in those hills — if there is any public property out there, that is.

This pic from the back of the cemetery shows a little of the age and condition and why it seemed so spooky in there.

Now here’s an interesting concept in cemeteries.  When the headstones fall, just prop them against a tree and let the visitors guess which of the unmarked mounds the people are in.  Judging from the look and feel of this place someone (or something) would probably show up after dark that would be glad to show you.

Well, they are there somewhere. We tried hard not to step on anyone. Unmarked mounds are all over.

Well, that’s the highlights from this trip out.  We had enough fun that we’ll be going back in a few days.  Um….this time I’ll be checking my pack for holes before I go.

Tags: abandoned cemeteries, California, California spider pictures, gemstones, odd tree formation, quartz crystal dig sites, Quartz crystals, rock and gem hunters, rockhound trip report, Rockhounding Copperopolis, rockhounds