Post by herchenx on Jul 14, 2012 23:29:38 GMT -5
Well last night the local rock hounding club president sent out an email saying that there was an outing today to a school supply place in town.
I had to miss the last club meeting because of our big trip, so I wanted to try to go say hi to whoever was there, I got a late start and headed over this morning.
For some reason I was thinking it was a science supply warehouse with old inventory, boy was I wrong.
When I arrived, the club members were scattered around a 5-acre lot. An employee named Steve came over and met me and gave me the run down. He said they were a mineral sample supply company for schools and universities. The club was allowed one visit, and we could pick up and keep anything we found on the ground, no limit!!
If you have seen me post at all, you know I am really lacking for rock (said with tongue planted firmly in cheek), but what an opportunity.
Well I started looking around, and at first it all looked like really bland stuff, white, chalky material, grays, blacks - a little boring.
All of the sudden the ground was green. I was standing on top of a living-room-sized spread of small fluorite, green and purply. It was kind of small, but really pretty.
My first "keepers" were several pieces of this blue dendritic stuff:
I hadn't come prepared with buckets or bags, so I just put them in my cargo shorts and kept looking.
Well I'll get to the details in a bit. I looked around for about 45 minutes and was finding all sorts of little colorful things. Steve came out and said they were giving a tour of the shipping area and that we would be done and have to leave in about 30 minutes.
I hadn't realized the time was limited so I was taking my time.
Well I kicked it into high gear. I found a bit of small amethyst, some clear quartz crystals, a nice smoky quartz crystal, some rutilated quartz that looks orange like citrine, and some rose quartz.
I was shuffling around the edge of the lot and a bright red piece of agate/jaspery stuff caught my eye. I pulled it and a much larger piece came out of the dirt.
I started looking around, and it appeared that a LOT of BIG pieces of what I think is some rio-grande area agate and nice dendritic jasper had been buried in this burm. I started scrambling. I had made a number of trips to the truck with lots of little specimens, and I was carrying my cigarette-powered air compressor canvas satchel to load with rock. Well I filled it to overflowing, then I filled all the pockets in the cargo shorts.
I've been on a diet since march and have lost nearly 30 pounds, so things are all pretty loose on me these days. I was walking back to the truck and had to drop the satchel because my shorts started to pull down!
I tied the drawstring tightly enough that I thought it might start to cut, picked up the satchel and waddled across the lot to the truck just as the cars were all leaving.
I got home and cleaned everything up.
Here goes:
Tiny Geodes:
Fluorite:
This stuff was cool, but I got conflicting information. It flakes like Mica, but is completely transparent. Someone said Muscavite, someone else said Mica, and someone else said Selenite:
close up on one of the pieces from the above photo:
The jaspers and agates all togehter:
Close up of the piece that initially caught my eye from the above batch:
close up of the dendritic jasper (had a good amount of this):
Close up of some white and pinky/purply stuff that looks familiar but whose identity escapes me:
one pretty piece of unakite:
one of several carnelian nodules:
a nice banded piece of agate:
shot of the quartz, amethyst, amazonite, pyrite, hematite, some green stuff I can't ID, and some pretty blue crystals that look a little like the amazonite, but more blue:
detail of the unknown blue:
detail of the rose, smoky, clear and rutilated quartz with amethyst:
detail of the amazonite:
some sort of sparkly hematite:
several varieties of pyrite
unknown green stuff, it feels like sandstone, but it's green
calcite crystals
SO today started off with a very fun surprise. Had I known it was time-bound, and what the nature of the trip was, I would have brought buckets and wheelbarrows like most of the other folks who left with HUNDREDS of pounds of stuff!!
I do think I was the only one who was after workable material versus just specimens, and that agate/jasper stuff was really sweet and I got a lot, probably 25-30#.
I had to miss the last club meeting because of our big trip, so I wanted to try to go say hi to whoever was there, I got a late start and headed over this morning.
For some reason I was thinking it was a science supply warehouse with old inventory, boy was I wrong.
When I arrived, the club members were scattered around a 5-acre lot. An employee named Steve came over and met me and gave me the run down. He said they were a mineral sample supply company for schools and universities. The club was allowed one visit, and we could pick up and keep anything we found on the ground, no limit!!
If you have seen me post at all, you know I am really lacking for rock (said with tongue planted firmly in cheek), but what an opportunity.
Well I started looking around, and at first it all looked like really bland stuff, white, chalky material, grays, blacks - a little boring.
All of the sudden the ground was green. I was standing on top of a living-room-sized spread of small fluorite, green and purply. It was kind of small, but really pretty.
My first "keepers" were several pieces of this blue dendritic stuff:
I hadn't come prepared with buckets or bags, so I just put them in my cargo shorts and kept looking.
Well I'll get to the details in a bit. I looked around for about 45 minutes and was finding all sorts of little colorful things. Steve came out and said they were giving a tour of the shipping area and that we would be done and have to leave in about 30 minutes.
I hadn't realized the time was limited so I was taking my time.
Well I kicked it into high gear. I found a bit of small amethyst, some clear quartz crystals, a nice smoky quartz crystal, some rutilated quartz that looks orange like citrine, and some rose quartz.
I was shuffling around the edge of the lot and a bright red piece of agate/jaspery stuff caught my eye. I pulled it and a much larger piece came out of the dirt.
I started looking around, and it appeared that a LOT of BIG pieces of what I think is some rio-grande area agate and nice dendritic jasper had been buried in this burm. I started scrambling. I had made a number of trips to the truck with lots of little specimens, and I was carrying my cigarette-powered air compressor canvas satchel to load with rock. Well I filled it to overflowing, then I filled all the pockets in the cargo shorts.
I've been on a diet since march and have lost nearly 30 pounds, so things are all pretty loose on me these days. I was walking back to the truck and had to drop the satchel because my shorts started to pull down!
I tied the drawstring tightly enough that I thought it might start to cut, picked up the satchel and waddled across the lot to the truck just as the cars were all leaving.
I got home and cleaned everything up.
Here goes:
Tiny Geodes:
Fluorite:
This stuff was cool, but I got conflicting information. It flakes like Mica, but is completely transparent. Someone said Muscavite, someone else said Mica, and someone else said Selenite:
close up on one of the pieces from the above photo:
The jaspers and agates all togehter:
Close up of the piece that initially caught my eye from the above batch:
close up of the dendritic jasper (had a good amount of this):
Close up of some white and pinky/purply stuff that looks familiar but whose identity escapes me:
one pretty piece of unakite:
one of several carnelian nodules:
a nice banded piece of agate:
shot of the quartz, amethyst, amazonite, pyrite, hematite, some green stuff I can't ID, and some pretty blue crystals that look a little like the amazonite, but more blue:
detail of the unknown blue:
detail of the rose, smoky, clear and rutilated quartz with amethyst:
detail of the amazonite:
some sort of sparkly hematite:
several varieties of pyrite
unknown green stuff, it feels like sandstone, but it's green
calcite crystals
SO today started off with a very fun surprise. Had I known it was time-bound, and what the nature of the trip was, I would have brought buckets and wheelbarrows like most of the other folks who left with HUNDREDS of pounds of stuff!!
I do think I was the only one who was after workable material versus just specimens, and that agate/jasper stuff was really sweet and I got a lot, probably 25-30#.