Palos Verdes CA rock collections - ID request

[rocknewb101]

Hello - I just got back from my trip to California and we had the opportunity to get to the Pacific coast and do a little rock collecting. I don't feel as if I had a lot of success finding anything truly spectacular, but I do really like what I found. I'm curious because a lot of what i got looks like the puddingstones that I've seen in several Michigan Rocks videos, but through my research I can't find that puddingstones are even found on the west coast. I believe some of these are granite, but again, I really have no idea. I scratched each of them with a steel nail and only one of them took a faint scratch, telling me they are at least 6.5 on the mohs. All of the rocks are wet in the images and all of them have heft to them (I carried them along our walk for several hours - they are HEAVY! ). What else may you need from me to make determinations? Regardless I'm going to try and polish some of these in the vibe since they are nicely rounded already and others I think I want to cut open to see if the patterns continue through - thanks for your thoughts. 





























Quartzy looking











This is the one that scratched slightly with the nail

[jasoninsd]

Nice group of finds Peta!

I suck at IDs! I find a lot of pieces like pic #7 out here in SD. I think it "might" be banded chert...if I'm right, that one will polish amazingly well!

[rocknewb101]

Jan 26, 2023 9:50:04 GMT -5 jasoninsd said:

Nice group of finds Peta!

I suck at IDs! I find a lot of pieces like pic #7 out here in SD. I think it "might" be banded chert...if I'm right, that one will polish amazingly well!

Thanks, jasoninsd! I wish I was better at ID'ing. At some point I'll take a geology course, but need to finish my degree first. I'm hopeful that at least some of these will polish nicely - will be sure to post when I'm done.

[victor1941]

Sharp edge pieces in matrix are called breccia and rounded pieces make up conglomerates or puddingstone. I used geologyscience.com and searched "conglomerates" and found other classifications depending on the mix. The Calif people should be able to tell you where the material had it's origin.

[rocknewb101]

Jan 26, 2023 10:35:14 GMT -5 victor1941 said:

Sharp edge pieces in matrix are called breccia and rounded pieces make up conglomerates or puddingstone. I used geologyscience.com and searched "conglomerates" and found other classifications depending on the mix. The Calif people should be able to tell you where the material had it's origin.

Thank you!! I found the term conglomerates, but when I googled that I got images of rock cliffs lol...thanks for the website - I will go there and look some more. 

[Pat]

We used to live in Palos Verdes. I found ONE rock i kept, and that was from the beach. It was a fossil shell in matrix. You found a lot I would keep!

[rocknewb101]

Jan 26, 2023 12:45:00 GMT -5 Pat said:

We used to live in Palos Verdes. I found ONE rock i kept, and that was from the beach. It was a fossil shell in matrix. You found a lot I would keep!

Oooh!! Awesome!  I kept looking for fossils and the tell tale signs of ammonites, but don't think I found any. I think what I found are pretty interesting - looking forward to seeing how and if they polish.. Loved the area - so scenic and pretty. Was pretty surprised at how rocky the beaches are - easy to twist an ankle lol....

[rocknewb101]

When I got home last night I set up my magnifying light, dried off all the rocks and tried the scratch test again. The conglomerated rocks DO scratch up so are much softer than I thought. the rocks with banding do not scratch and seem quite hard. I put them, along with some other stuff that was waiting in the lot-o last night. may have too big of a rock in there because it was not moving as good as my prior batch. will do a clean out and redo tonight when I get home from work. Will be sure to share the final.