Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Nov 19, 2007 19:22:01 GMT -5
Howdy folks, I've been thinking palm ( thanks to Curt -Texaswoodie) lately and so have been digging through my palm piles Thought I'd take a few pics. Here in California, we don't have a lot of palm fiber because the trunks of most the palms were usually burnt off by volcanic activity. We sometimes find nice hunks from the palm root ball, sometimes called palm onions, but mostly we find agatized or opalized fossil bog with palm roots strewn through the specimens. Stuff is hard as the very devil to saw but I really like all the strange designs. All these are from the Mojave Desert. Mostly from the Yermo and California City areas. Thanks for looking....Mel Roots remind me of little rockets in this piece: Lots of roots in cross section here. Well replaced by agate too. I like the ones with all the blood reds and oranges and roots going in all directions: This is kind of palm bog crazy lace. Mostly agate with lots of fortifications and lacy stuff: Black and blue example opalized on the outside. If you look close you can see the little white tubules inside the blue agate roots that have been cut through: This one is an unusual piece. If you look closely at the center of the slab above the pitted area, you can see several rounded root casts in cross section where the structure of the roots has been totally dissolved and the interior of each root replaced with red mossy agate.
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Post by Bikerrandy on Nov 19, 2007 19:29:10 GMT -5
That second one is crazy!! Those are all really cool bud
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jimrbto
noticing nice landscape pebbles
Member since April 2007
Posts: 94
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Post by jimrbto on Nov 19, 2007 20:11:40 GMT -5
Sabre Don't know where you live, but I live in California City and have found some pieces of palm in the mountains west of town. One of these days I may get lucky and find a log but so far all I find are pieces as float and not too much bigger than a double fist. I assume that you find the palm to the east of the city in the Castle Bute area? Maybe we could share some location info. Jim
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Post by beefjello on Nov 19, 2007 20:40:14 GMT -5
Wow, great looking finds! The red and orange stuff is beautiful. Hey Mel, have you ever hunted the Little Chuckwallas near Desert Center? Christa and I are heading out for Oceanside Thursday morn via I-10 and I'm trying to figure out some good places to hunt along the way. Any suggestions? Thanks!
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Nov 19, 2007 20:46:49 GMT -5
Jim: Pic #4 is the only one that came from east of Calif. City and we stumbled upon that palm while collecting some pet wood and rhyolite for our rock garden. Been years and years ago so the area has probably changed a lot but we just turned east on the main drag through town and went up in the hills on a dirt road and wandered about. Stumbled on a wash between two higher peaks that was loaded with wood and such but who knows what it's like now. I remember that was a shakedown trip for my new 1975 Landcruiser so that gives you an idea of just how long ago it was *S*. The rest of the examples except the last two, are form right around the Yermo city dump off Mineola Rd and south of the early man site. Someone has told me more of the area is off limits now but I'm not sure how much. Last time I was there was about 5 years ago and I found lots of neat stuff in the roadcut leading right up to the dump..Mel
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darrad
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since September 2006
Posts: 1,636
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Post by darrad on Nov 19, 2007 20:46:57 GMT -5
Fantastic stuff as always from the master collector. The black and blue is my fav. Night star lit skys in that one for sure! Thanks for the pics Mel, Made my evening.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Nov 19, 2007 20:57:21 GMT -5
Brian, Yep I've hunted that area quite a bit. I usually go over Graham Pass towards the old Butterfield and Bradley Stage route. Rough but good gravel road last I was in there ( years ago) and we found lots of neat stuff up in the pass before you drop down into the valley. Right at the summit we found banded and fortification nodules scattered in the desert pavement and in one ravine found an old Amerind quarry with some nice jasper agate. Also some pretty good sagenite and lemon yellow banded agate nodules. We just drove to the summit of the pass and hiked west into the ravines and walked the terraces. The area is truly vast so impossible to hunt out all the ravines but if you go too far over the top, the geology changes and we didn't find much there at all except lots of giant cactus gardens and neat wildlife. The valley on the south of the pass is famous for being a really neat hunk of desert environment....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Nov 19, 2007 21:06:54 GMT -5
Wizard: Yeah, I like the black and blue too but darned if I can remember where I picked it up. I'm thinking maybe over by Horse Canyon or the closed area by Redrock Park. I was amazed at the quantity of palm root ( slabs as large as a tabletop) that we found on the last Porterville club trip into Horse Canyon. Sad that it's all closed now *sigh*.....Mel
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adrian65
Cave Dweller
Arch to golden memories and to great friends.
Member since February 2007
Posts: 10,787
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Post by adrian65 on Nov 19, 2007 23:51:34 GMT -5
Beautiful stuff! Each piece is beautiful in its own way.
Adrian
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fossilbrain
spending too much on rocks
Cookie Monster agate
Member since October 2007
Posts: 360
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Post by fossilbrain on Nov 20, 2007 2:10:13 GMT -5
Really, really cool, and thanks for the elaborations.
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Post by texaswoodie on Nov 20, 2007 11:07:19 GMT -5
Neat stuff Mel! I like the mossy one the best. I'm curious to know how it's determined that they are palm roots? Scientific thing? I find an occasional piece of bog here. This is by far the best one I've found to date. Is there any way of knowing if these are palm roots or just a conglomeration of bog roots? Curt
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Nov 20, 2007 12:20:19 GMT -5
Curt: Once the structure has been dissolved, identifying the specimen as palm root is just a guess based on what is found in the area etc. Actually not too many big plant species grew in these areas during the period of Miocene volcanism. In some of the areas yucca root is found too but the palm root , if all it's structures are fully replaced, is scientifically identifiable. Whereas things like conifer and hardwood roots tend to appear as a bundle of phloem cells , palm roots if fully replaced, seem to have a large central tube down the center full of vessels and other structures radiating from that toward the outer root layer. Gives them a definite bull's eye look. Great photos appear at members.aol.com/Waucoba7/redrock/redrockfossils.html and here are a couple of photos of my cabs showing these structures pretty well.....Mel Closer look:
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Post by Tonyterner on Nov 20, 2007 13:37:05 GMT -5
Mel, thanks for the photo and the geology lesson. I like the first one the best, really different. Those cabs are wild. Love the pattern in them.
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Post by rocklicker on Nov 20, 2007 15:12:50 GMT -5
I like the black and blue one a lot, but all are very interesting. Now I can say I know a bit about palm bog ;D The cabs really show it off well, but the big one on the right keeps staring at me. Kinda creepy and really cool at the same time. Steve
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one80mike
freely admits to licking rocks
@(-_-)@ Princess Leia!
Member since February 2007
Posts: 908
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Post by one80mike on Nov 21, 2007 19:58:08 GMT -5
That stuff is too cool!
1, 3 and 6, especially 6 just blow me away. You always have the most interesting stuff to shae.
Thanks.
Mike
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