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Post by rockpickerforever on Apr 17, 2015 9:37:35 GMT -5
The soil where Lucy is laying looks coarse. maybe dusty in a wind storm. Only a farmer would call it soil, lol. I'd call it dirt! The coarseness is due to the fact that it is tailings from someone's drywasher. So basically, all the small rocks that got sifted out and dumped. And hopefully, they got a little bit of gold for their troubles.
Yes, the wind can whip that up when it gets windy. But for the most part, any loose dirt has already been blown away, leaving the small rocks laying on the surface. Any new digging will provide new dirt for the next wind storm.
This is the clay dirt in my garden, when allowed to dry out:
Have been adding amendments (organic material from mulch pile, perlite, manures, etc) to the garden for over 20 years. The rest of the yard is pretty much just clay. The cracks are several inches deep. Bought a bale of straw on Monday, and yesterday applied it to the garden surface. That should help keep it from drying out. A little bit maybe?
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Post by snowmom on Apr 17, 2015 10:19:49 GMT -5
jean, have been all over the internet and looking in my reference books here, the "fish shit" may be ostracods. In searching I found this link, which I know many looking a this thread will find interesting! www.techtimes.com/articles/6989/20140515/draft-petrified-16-million-year-old-sperm-of-mussel-shrimp-is-sperm-tacular-in-size.htmthe exterior of your cab looks quite different from the inside! The pic is not real clear when blown up but they do look like tiny bivalve shapes... Probably need super magnification to make a proper ID, but this seems to come close. Darn cool stuff whatever it is! Any chance you know the era of formation for the place where this was found? That would narrow it down by several million/billion years!
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Post by rockpickerforever on Apr 17, 2015 11:50:54 GMT -5
snowmom, if it was in a particular layer/formation with a known age, that could pin it down. But since the areas I find those in are ancient flood plains of the Colorado River, containing all kind of rocks from areas upstream, places as far away as Northern AZ and into Utah (maybe even farther?), they can't be attributed to a particular formation. Similar to a glacial erratic (I know you are familiar with those , that has been moved many miles. Call it a river erratic, if you will. I find rocks of all different ages in these places.
The area was also a shallow sea in the distant past, hence the corals we find. I once found a colonial coral in Ocotillo Wells. I posted photos on The Fossil Forum for help to ID it. Turns out it was much older than the age of the deposits where found. The critter was extinct by the time this area formed! A lot of hard, well-traveled rocks out in the local desert.
Same story with Potholes, lots of different geological periods represented there. Here's a link to the thread from the trip at the end of 2013. It has a geologic map of the area around Potholes. If you missed it, here's a link to the entire thread (part 3, fossils).
Will upload some full resolution photos for you. I know how you love a mystery!
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,158
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Post by jamesp on Apr 17, 2015 13:45:10 GMT -5
LOL. Mini Cali earthquakes in Jean's yard. Do you have a seismograph ? We have the same problem. Me and my buddy were smoking left handed cigarettes in high school at lunch break back in the woods. The police decided to chase us and we started to dust them till we ran across a dried out clay bottom lake covered in weeds. 2 foot crack-4 foot flat spot-2 foot crack-4 foot flat spot. on and on for a quarter mile. We could not see the cracks for the weeds. We finally landed in a crack and fell about 8 feet down, like a field of crevices. too slick to climb out. ha. They got mad at us cause we were laughing our butts off. Their shiny black shoes were covered in mud. They were issed, and I don't blame them looking back. Those police had corralled us into that lake bed, they knew. They escorted us back to our parents. They said we almost made it. I miss those days.
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Post by rockpickerforever on Apr 17, 2015 15:45:40 GMT -5
The pic is not real clear when blown up but they do look like tiny bivalve shapes... Probably need super magnification to make a proper ID, but this seems to come close. Darn cool stuff whatever it is! Deb, I took a few more photos. My old camera does not have the best resolution, but I uploaded the photos at full strength. I doubt that they are bivalves.
Here's the link to them on Flickr. I believe I have more whole chunks of them from Ocotillo Wells, would need to go hunting for them, lol.
The first three are the fish sh!t ones, both rough and cab. The last five are of what I consider oolite. They are round, and clearly formed in layer. Like a little jawbreaker!
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jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,158
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Post by jamesp on Apr 17, 2015 18:52:36 GMT -5
I like this stuff
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victor1941
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since November 2011
Posts: 1,979
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Post by victor1941 on Apr 17, 2015 22:01:00 GMT -5
I really enjoyed your picture rock hunting trip and especially the salmon colored specimen. As a side note I wanted to let you know that I have sliced and trimmed the Brenda jasper that I won in the mileage contest. I haven't decided if I want to vibe the flats and then dome the special ones that I really like or just pick a few where the color is outstanding and get them ready for the finished cab. I will post some photos when finished. Thanks again.
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Post by rockpickerforever on Apr 18, 2015 0:11:50 GMT -5
Thank you, Victor. Glad that you liked the Brenda material, looking forward to seeing how it turns out! Jean
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Post by snowmom on Apr 18, 2015 6:04:05 GMT -5
rockpickerforever. Jean, thanks for taking the extra photos- The stuff you took pictures of looks like a sedimentary collection of tiny bodies, but not sure the one in 3 layers that was your original 'fish shit" post is the same stuff? You would know, having handled several at this point. Photos can sometimes be very misleading. In the cabbed fossils The "bivalve look" comes from the body of the mini shrimp, and they are not really bivalves at all... the lines in the middle of the ovals as well as some that look tubular there make me think this might be the ostracod "mussel shrimp". The first picture you posted in the original thread of the uncut rock in graduated layers looks a lot like fish teeth from the photos I could find. Always a handicap not to have the rock in hand... keeping on keeping on.... so interesting!
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Post by Pat on Apr 25, 2015 21:57:06 GMT -5
Jean, that's a great trip report, and interesting rocks new to me. Really like all the oolitic/and not true oolitic rocks. Lucy is a smart dog! I thought the "fish shit" rock looked like fish eggs. Wonder if you soaked it in water, if you would get some live fish! lol
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