Post by LCARS on May 31, 2008 1:24:32 GMT -5
Recently I was out walking on the beach with my GF
(well ex-ex GF actually but that's a story for the "Life & the Universe" section some other time).
We were collecting rocks to tumble and doing OK on the lower wash for small but nice quartzes and red jaspers etc..
Angela decided to go up to the higher wash while I kept scanning the wet wash areas for dallasites which are easier to spot wet. Just as we were getting to the end of the productive section of beach I noticed a characteristic white/blue/red tinge poking up from the surf a few meters away, covered in algea but unmistakeable....
It was a HUGE 8kg chunk of solid Vancouver Island Fancy Jasper!
It was about to be devoured by the rising tide but I managed to beat the devil and skootch it a little bit closer to dry land after each wave subsided until I got it up on the beach and with only a partial one foot soaker.
I usually bring my pack with me in case I do ever find something large that's nice but I left it in the truck 450 meters back down the beach this time thinking it would just be extra baggage to carry.
After all it was not a "serious planned" collecting trip, we just decided to stop by since we were in the area, but this time I hit pay dirt BIG TIME and didn't have my pack, D'oh!
This thing was awkward as hell just getting out of the water and a bit much for one person to carry in hand half a km down a beach so I decided to try and bust it open to see if it's actually good solid material all the way through and so we could both carry out the smaller more manageable chunks by hand with relative ease.
Well, as you can see in the following pics, it is a real honker and a real beauty too!
A little corroded and rough looking on the oustside though, as expected coming from the ocean. It does indeed consist of good lapidary quality solid material virtually all throughout.
Here is the 18lb pile pile of broken up chunks on my back deck, shown wet.
You can see how nicely this would stand out from the other boring beach rocks even with a salt corroded surface layer.
Those are 2x4's for a size ref.
Here is the outside of an end piece, shown wet
Here is the inside of the same end piece with some water spray on it to hilight the red spots and the deep blue
This material is a nice mix of nearly transparent to ghosty white quartz and bluish hematite crystals with the red jasper inclusions distributed all throughout. It's easy to work and it shines up brilliantly. The hematite crystals give polished pieces an amazing metalic sparkle that is hard to faithfully capture in photos. I usually hang on to most of the good quality polished pieces that I have collected so far.
Here is some more wet photos of the insides, taken in diffused sunlight using a fill flash.
Same shot with no flash using a horizontal polarizing filter.
And finally, here's a bonus outside closeup of another end piece.
As you can see, the areas that were more rich in the hematite microcrystals corroded more quickly in the ocean environment causing some cavitation but I have tumbled many of this stone's smaller brothers and got a decent shine even without grinding off all of the sea bleached outer surface, I think it adds character and variety.
I could take some more pics to add if anyone's interested in seeing polished pieces and more closeuups of the rough (i'm already cutting some up with the WF)...
(well ex-ex GF actually but that's a story for the "Life & the Universe" section some other time).
We were collecting rocks to tumble and doing OK on the lower wash for small but nice quartzes and red jaspers etc..
Angela decided to go up to the higher wash while I kept scanning the wet wash areas for dallasites which are easier to spot wet. Just as we were getting to the end of the productive section of beach I noticed a characteristic white/blue/red tinge poking up from the surf a few meters away, covered in algea but unmistakeable....
It was a HUGE 8kg chunk of solid Vancouver Island Fancy Jasper!
It was about to be devoured by the rising tide but I managed to beat the devil and skootch it a little bit closer to dry land after each wave subsided until I got it up on the beach and with only a partial one foot soaker.
I usually bring my pack with me in case I do ever find something large that's nice but I left it in the truck 450 meters back down the beach this time thinking it would just be extra baggage to carry.
After all it was not a "serious planned" collecting trip, we just decided to stop by since we were in the area, but this time I hit pay dirt BIG TIME and didn't have my pack, D'oh!
This thing was awkward as hell just getting out of the water and a bit much for one person to carry in hand half a km down a beach so I decided to try and bust it open to see if it's actually good solid material all the way through and so we could both carry out the smaller more manageable chunks by hand with relative ease.
Well, as you can see in the following pics, it is a real honker and a real beauty too!
A little corroded and rough looking on the oustside though, as expected coming from the ocean. It does indeed consist of good lapidary quality solid material virtually all throughout.
Here is the 18lb pile pile of broken up chunks on my back deck, shown wet.
You can see how nicely this would stand out from the other boring beach rocks even with a salt corroded surface layer.
Those are 2x4's for a size ref.
Here is the outside of an end piece, shown wet
Here is the inside of the same end piece with some water spray on it to hilight the red spots and the deep blue
This material is a nice mix of nearly transparent to ghosty white quartz and bluish hematite crystals with the red jasper inclusions distributed all throughout. It's easy to work and it shines up brilliantly. The hematite crystals give polished pieces an amazing metalic sparkle that is hard to faithfully capture in photos. I usually hang on to most of the good quality polished pieces that I have collected so far.
Here is some more wet photos of the insides, taken in diffused sunlight using a fill flash.
Same shot with no flash using a horizontal polarizing filter.
And finally, here's a bonus outside closeup of another end piece.
As you can see, the areas that were more rich in the hematite microcrystals corroded more quickly in the ocean environment causing some cavitation but I have tumbled many of this stone's smaller brothers and got a decent shine even without grinding off all of the sea bleached outer surface, I think it adds character and variety.
I could take some more pics to add if anyone's interested in seeing polished pieces and more closeuups of the rough (i'm already cutting some up with the WF)...