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Post by vegasjames on Jun 27, 2013 22:32:54 GMT -5
Although stromatolites still exist to this day this is a fossil stromatolite. Stromatolite fossils are fossils of cyanobacteria colonies that produced the original oxygen of this planet allowing the evolving of life here on Earth.
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Post by helens on Jun 28, 2013 21:33:33 GMT -5
You're in Vegas and you found all this stuff near there!?
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Post by Pat on Jun 28, 2013 22:06:03 GMT -5
"Although stromatolites still exist to this day this is a fossil stromatolite. Stromatolite fossils are fossils of cyanobacteria colonies that produced the original oxygen of this planet allowing the evolving of life here on Earth."
You've given me another reason to like stromatolites.
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Post by vegasjames on Jun 28, 2013 23:48:57 GMT -5
You're in Vegas and you found all this stuff near there!? I did find the stromatolite just outside of town. I collect red selenite just outside of town as well and find a lot of crinoid fossils in this area. There is a type of Jasper known as "Henderson Jade" just outside of Las Vegas. I have found small black agates, botryoidal garnets and an interesting heavily microfractured (looks frothy) gray obsidian close to the same area. There are several places relatively close by for purple agate, but I have not gone for those yet. I have found blue chalcedony just outside of town and blue quartz about 90 miles from here. I find chromite primarily about 48 miles from here and have also found rainbow quartz and tons of druzy in the same area. There are beryl sources in the mountains 60, 90 and 110 miles from here. Lots of fossils around Vegas and Southern Nevada, but most are illegal to collect such as mammoth bones and dinosaur eggs. Keep in mind that Las Vegas means the springs. This area use to be greener and there are numerous springs in and around Las Vegas. There is petrified wood in several areas around here from 60-90 miles away. Clear quartz and citrine about 60 and 90 miles from here. There is a turquoise mine close to Las Vegas here is Clark County, but never been there. There are several other turquoise mines just over State Line in California. Diamonds were found in this area a long time ago, but the man who found them could never find the spot again. I have two suspect spots I want to check out. I have been to one spit several times and found various indicators such as dunites and ecoglite. I have found fluorite, variscite and barite around 100 miles from here. The big jasper field is a little over 200 miles from here. And I have found some really pretty agates, including a good sized black agate in Tonopah, Nevada. I was just up there a few weeks ago digging in the Otterson and Tiffany mines for Turquoise. So there is some stuff in this area and a lot more within a short enough distance for day trips.
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Post by helens on Jun 29, 2013 0:00:09 GMT -5
Wow... I was in Vegas for 2 weeks about a month and a half ago, and wish I knew that. We went to Death Valley and Grand Canyon, but had no idea there were any rocks to find nearby that were any good (because even if they were good, we couldn't take stuff at Death Valley or Grand Canyon anyway). I could have been running around looking for rocks instead of the boring sights and shows in Vegas?? Sigh.
There is VERY little information online about good spots to rockhound around Vegas, at least that I could find. Did you find these spots yourself or with your local rock club or what?
I doubt I'll get back to Vegas anytime soon, but I'm curious what I missed:).
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Post by vegasjames on Jun 29, 2013 0:25:14 GMT -5
Wow... I was in Vegas for 2 weeks about a month and a half ago, and wish I knew that. We went to Death Valley and Grand Canyon, but had no idea there were any rocks to find nearby that were any good (because even if they were good, we couldn't take stuff at Death Valley or Grand Canyon anyway). I could have been running around looking for rocks instead of the boring sights and shows in Vegas?? Sigh. There is VERY little information online about good spots to rockhound around Vegas, at least that I could find. Did you find these spots yourself or with your local rock club or what? I doubt I'll get back to Vegas anytime soon, but I'm curious what I missed:). If I had known you were coming I could have shown you a lot of interesting places around here other than the damn casinos. My favorite place around here is the Valley of Fire. I also like hiking to the Goldstrike Hot Springs and there are some areas of Red Rock I really like. Up at Mount Charleston the only place I really like is the Bristlecone Pine Trail. Those trees are thousands of years old and really beautiful. Lake Mead is pretty much a sewer so I try to avoid it as much as possible. There were some really neat caves with massive stalactites and stalagmites up near Red Rock, but they were sealed up since people were vandalizing the caves. I forgot to add that there is also fire agate about 100 miles from here in Arizona. Many of the mineral pockets I have found by simply hiking the deserts generally looking for meteorites. I learned of a petrified wood deposit through the club, but I am not much in to petrified wood either though. I still collected some though for the kid's club and friends and kept the pieces that petrified as limonite, which is a stone I really like. The club has made several trips for the purple agate, but I have not gone. And they went to Gabbs, Nevada recently for opal, but I decided not to go and went on a couple of other collection trips instead. I found a potential beryl crystal area about a year ago, but so far have only found one crystal. Unfortunately it was way to big to carry out even if I could have gotten my truck to the spot. I heard there are emeralds though in the same mountain range so I know there are other beryls in the area and plan to do some more serious searching come fall. In general I try to explore areas where people generally do not go. In fact, I almost never see anyone in the areas I generally go. I do the same thing when I scuba dive for lobsters. I dive in areas where divers almost never go due to the extremely poor visibility and I almost always reach my limit after a dive or two because the areas have not been picked over.
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Post by helens on Jun 29, 2013 0:34:16 GMT -5
Wow... I KNEW there had to be a lot near Vegas... the land isn't a whole lot different from the hot spots in Az and California and Utah. I don't know why it's less explored, but that seems to be more the problem than whether there are rocks there.
One crystal beryl 'way too big to carry out'? OMG. Um... beryls are emeralds, aquamarines and morganite?! Was it green? That's worth renting a digger and an ATV for...can you find it again?
Dang... diving for lobsters... I have some funny stories about doing that in the Florida Keys... LOL! Lets just say we never got any lobsters...
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Post by vegasjames on Jun 29, 2013 0:48:01 GMT -5
Wow... I KNEW there had to be a lot near Vegas... the land isn't a whole lot different from the hot spots in Az and California and Utah. I don't know why it's less explored, but that seems to be more the problem than whether there are rocks there. One crystal beryl 'way too big to carry out'? OMG. Um... beryls are emeralds, aquamarines and morganite?! Was it green? That's worth renting a digger and an ATV for...can you find it again? Dang... diving for lobsters... I have some funny stories about doing that in the Florida Keys... LOL! Lets just say we never got any lobsters... Much of Nevada has not been "explored" because most of it is off limits military or state or national park. There are other beryls. This was an opaque purple beryl. There was about 4 feet of the crystal sticking out of the wash and a very large diameter. So it definitely was not going in the backpack. I expected to find more, hopefully smaller ones further down but never found any others. I won't go in to why publically, but I know there are some other larger ones in the area. It is just super tough terrain to hike. Can I find it again? Absolutely. I know exactly where it is located. But it would be very difficult to much of any vehicle to the area, which is why I was hoping to locate a field of smaller crystals. There is actually another pert of the mountain range I want to focus on that has some clearly defined pegmatite. I will probably have much better luck there, but the terrain is more dangerous due to the steepness, loose rock and long drop offs. Still, I want to spend a few days exploring the area this fall. Ah, the Florida Keys. Hope it was not Sugarloaf. Diving there sucked big time. Whatever was going in to the water on the one side killed all the coral and fish and was making the water milky white. I saw the same thing in one part of Hawaii where the runoff from the sugarcane fields killed everything and left the water brown. I was told there were some blacktip sharks that hang out there that I wanted to dive with. But there was nothing living anywhere in that water other than myself.
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Post by helens on Jun 29, 2013 1:06:39 GMT -5
We had a boat at the time, and we didn't go down there during lobster season... it was the week before. So we thought we'd scout around to see what lobsters to be found might hide at. Well, we found some... it happened to be in the park... and well, I thought I'd practice hanging off the boat and tickling a particularly large one... as the Marine patrol just happened on by... and well, I didn't get in trouble (did not bring it on the boat, was just trying to see how fast it moved). But it was embarrassing anyway:).
When we used to go a lot, we would got to Islamorada. I forgot which key Sugarloaf is now. The water there is so shallow, our boat had trouble with even our little draft. I know there's a trick to finding lobster, we just didn't know it...LOL!
Hawaii...not sure how anyone finds anything in the water in Hawaii, the beaches I went to looked completely stripped, and what wasn't stripped was invisible on the North Shore from the waves and mud. From what I could tell, Florida beaches are far far nicer, with more things to see in it.
Um, swimming with sharks trailing panicked lobsters might not be such a great plan anywhere, so you were probably fortunate that there were no spiny lobsters to be found:).
It would be neat to find a bunch of beryl!!! Even the opaque kind:). I just did a quick search for purple beryl... um... it's called 'exceedingly rare'. Well, that should make it 'exceedingly pricey'? May want to go back for that boulder:P.
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Post by vegasjames on Jun 29, 2013 1:22:27 GMT -5
It would be neat to find a bunch of beryl!!! Even the opaque kind:). I just did a quick search for purple beryl... um... it's called 'exceedingly rare'. Well, that should make it 'exceedingly pricey'? May want to go back for that boulder:P. Got a really big helicopter?
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Post by helens on Jun 29, 2013 1:34:49 GMT -5
Well, if it's off a cliff... can you just pick it out and let it roll down and pick it up at the bottom:P?
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Post by helens on Jun 29, 2013 1:35:25 GMT -5
Or chip a junk or 2 off it:)?
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Post by vegasjames on Jun 29, 2013 2:19:03 GMT -5
Well, if it's off a cliff... can you just pick it out and let it roll down and pick it up at the bottom:P? Unfortunately it is in a steep wash with no roads nearby. The nearest road is over a mile away and uphill.
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Post by vegasjames on Jun 29, 2013 2:26:16 GMT -5
Or chip a junk or 2 off it:)? That is what I was hoping to do when I go back because I have a friend who does faceting and loves anything purple. Not really sure though how easy it is to chip or if it will shatter if hit. I guess one way to find out. My friend who hiked down there with me does have a brother who is a helicopter pilot. So we were talking about having him come out and fly us around the mountain range so we can pinpoint sources easier rather than trying to explore the range by foot. Again, it is very rough terrain. Very steep with lots of loose rock with no way to get close to the areas I want to reach. Regardless, I will not get a chance to get out there until fall due to the excessive heat during the summer months here.
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Post by helens on Jun 29, 2013 8:48:35 GMT -5
That's fascinating, and hope you do get out there. If you can't get the rock, at least you can take pix of it:).
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