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Post by paulshiroma on May 21, 2011 12:11:34 GMT -5
A while back, my boyz and I spent a few hours at the Field Road site off of Highway 15 collecting agates and jasper. Andrew found these pieces which were rather unusual and different from the rest of the stuff we found. We took them by Nevada Gem and Mineral, over in Tustin, CA, and had Walt Lombardo check them out. He indicated that they were both agates, the porous one was probably created when the agate intermingled with a soluable substance, which was eventually washed out, and left the agate in an almost coral-like state. Top view: "Front" view: Reverse view: Side one: Side two: Photos came out okay, I think. Got a lot of help from Greg and Sampson's threads. Genius that I am , I finally figured out that my camera does have a macro setting for upclose photos. Then it was messing with the lighting ... which still came out a bit odd. Gonna have to work on that part. Here's the other Andrew found. Not quite as interesting as the first but different from the rest we found there. View one: View two: Thanks for checking out the photos. Paul
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Post by gr on May 21, 2011 12:36:00 GMT -5
Interesting specimens Paul. And it's cool that you took your boys to find out about them. Good leason for them. And I got a little education also! ;D gary
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Post by jakesrocks on May 21, 2011 12:49:52 GMT -5
Nice finds. I have a gnarly old agate like your first one soaking in acid right now. Thought it might make an unusual shelf specimen. At first I thought it might be a type of coral, but after a good scrubbing found it was 100% agate. Don
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on May 21, 2011 16:53:14 GMT -5
A lot of the agate in that region forms in vesicles which are simply voids or pockets in the local volcanic rocks ( mainly basalt and andesite). Often there are calcite or aragonite crystals in the vesicles too. The agate simply fills in the voids and when the softer volcanics weather away, you get the weird shaped agates from the mold. Often you'll see angular indentations in the agate too and those are caused by the agate flowing in around the aragonite or calcite crystals which are later dissolved leaving geometric looking indentations from the crystal points in the agate.....Mel
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Post by paulshiroma on May 21, 2011 17:54:16 GMT -5
Andrew reminded me just now that we had one other in his collection from this site that needed to be added Thanks again for looking. Don - I thought they were corals initially as well! Gary - Thanks; take every opportunity to teach the boyz ... I know my Dad did with me (and does still with them). Walt is great too, he works a lot with teachers and takes an interest in getting children started in the hobby. Mel - thanks for the additional info. The geology of the region is still new to us and it's fascinating to get out there and see what we can find. Paul
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Fossilman
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2009
Posts: 20,687
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Post by Fossilman on May 21, 2011 21:35:37 GMT -5
I think the poor guys were in a fight with some granite and they lost ...........LOL
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Post by roy on May 21, 2011 22:19:09 GMT -5
nice finds any time you get to go hunting with you kids is pricless!
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Post by paulshiroma on May 21, 2011 22:20:44 GMT -5
Definitely!
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