smadelinker
starting to shine!
Member since October 2005
Posts: 47
|
Post by smadelinker on Dec 16, 2006 20:31:03 GMT -5
I'm a little confused I collected these stones following a tip from a website on collecting stones in So. Cal. [http://www.highdesertinsider.com/html/pvglauc.htm] It said this site had green glaucophane. The stones on the right break fairly easily and seem to be the same on the Mohs scale as what I've heard glaucophane is. But all of the websites I was able to find on gallucophane say it is blue. So is the rock on the left glaucophane or something else? It seems like it is something else to me but I'm not very good at identifying samples. also I have no idea what the reddish-brown rock is Any help greatly appreciated. I haven't seen anything on this board about glaucophane. Is it worth tumbling? We had a good time collecting at this place and saw some filming of the third "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie that day, so even if the stones aren't worth tumbling, the day was still worthwhile smadelinker
|
|
Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,456
|
Post by Sabre52 on Dec 16, 2006 21:19:05 GMT -5
Howdy Smade: The brown stuff looks like quartzite to me. I thought glaucophane was blue too. iI the green rock on the left full of sparkly mica. It might be some other kind of shist. The other greenish gray rock might be serpentine or serpentinite which often occur near greenish shist but it's hard to tell without the rock in hand...mel
|
|
|
Post by cpdad on Dec 16, 2006 21:39:44 GMT -5
cant help with the i.d. but you did ask if it was worth tumbling?...of course it is....you had a great time collecting it....why not tumble it.
just keep an eye on it once you start it in coarse...if it seems to do o.k. you may end up with some killer rock....it looks really nice.
|
|
smadelinker
starting to shine!
Member since October 2005
Posts: 47
|
Post by smadelinker on Jan 1, 2007 2:10:57 GMT -5
Okay, so I tumbled this load in 60-90 for a week, most of the load was the pseudo glaucophane with the "serpentine/ite" rock (which seems to be the same on the Mohs scale as the pseudo glaucophane) and a few of the quartz-like rock thrown in to make it 1/2+ a barrel full for tumbling. The slurry when I opened up the barrel was super gritty and thick. The pseudo-glacophane was apparently soft enough to start shedding some of its outer material into the slurry. (I won't be tumbling it with any other type of rock in the future to see if that cuts out the problem). This week I got my latest copy of "Rock and Gem" and saw an article on talc. I swear that picture of the greenish talc looks just like the stones above, but my stone is much harder than Mohs 1. The article says talc can be called "sandstone" too. Is it possible my rock is a combination of talc/sandstone??? It doesn't look "killer" yet... just smaller versions of the same rock as before, although the color is more vividly blue/green. smadelinker
|
|