Rockhounder's club (on topic)

zubenelgenubi

zubenelgenubi

I'm a star
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Found some interesting rocks on a hike with the family today. I was pretty sure they weren't obsidian, though they almost looked like they could have been. Thought maybe flint, but no sparks when struck with iron.
Got home and tested with a magnet, positive for magnetism. In the pictures I show two of the rocks sticking to a hard drive magnet. A streak test confirms they are almost certainly magnetite, rather than the unlikely alternative possibility, that being meteorite.
 
Whitelexus

Whitelexus

Well-Known Member
2033 said:
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Found some interesting rocks on a hike with the family today. I was pretty sure they weren't obsidian, though they almost looked like they could have been. Thought maybe flint, but no sparks when struck with iron.
Got home and tested with a magnet, positive for magnetism. In the pictures I show two of the rocks sticking to a hard drive magnet. A streak test confirms they are almost certainly magnetite, rather than the unlikely alternative possibility, that being meteorite.
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Meteorite would’ve been a sweet find
 
zubenelgenubi

zubenelgenubi

I'm a star
oldngray said:
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Crystal Waves - 8,000 Pounds Largest Arkansas Quartz Cluster Mega Crystal
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Now that's what I'm talking about! There was a cluster of emeralds found in South America that was appraised at $400 million. Made its way up to the US and was lost during hurricane Katrina.

There are people who make a living off of fishing tailings from the emerald mines out of the river. It's usually chunks of calcite that they dissolve in coca cola to expose the emeralds.
 
Whitelexus

Whitelexus

Well-Known Member
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Schnebly Hill sandstone
I’m guessing the white/Black one off in the distance is a limestone/basalt composition?
 
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scooby0048

scooby0048

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2033 said:
To get started, I like to walk rivers and streams, do a little snorkeling, comb gravel bars. Mostly find agates, jaspers and petrified wood, some quartz crystals from time to time. Here's a few of the pics I just happen to have on my device at the moment.
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Nice to see a good thread every once in a while instead of some of the idiotic ones that get started. I'm a little late to the party and not really a rockhounder per se, so I am not really adept at geology but I get out metal detecting and do find some goodies. Please excuse me if I don't use the correct terms.

Being in Wyoming, there are an abundance of gems and geologic formations as well as fossilized formations. We are right in the center of the great western seaway. During my metal detecting, I have found garnets, quartz, agates, emeralds, petrified wood, petrified poop, dinosaur teeth, a shark tooth, several crystals, and a few arrowheads.
 
Operational needs

Operational needs

Virescit Vulnere Virtus
scooby0048 said:
Nice to see a good thread every once in a while instead of some of the idiotic ones that get started. I'm a little late to the party and not really a rockhounder per se, so I am not really adept at geology but I get out metal detecting and do find some goodies. Please excuse me if I don't use the correct terms.

Being in Wyoming, there are an abundance of gems and geologic formations as well as fossilized formations. We are right in the center of the great western seaway. During my metal detecting, I have found garnets, quartz, agates, emeralds, petrified wood, petrified poop, dinosaur teeth, a shark tooth, several crystals, and a few arrowheads.
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Don’t forget Jesus! You didn’t melt him down did you?
 
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zubenelgenubi

zubenelgenubi

I'm a star
scooby0048 said:
Nice to see a good thread every once in a while instead of some of the idiotic ones that get started. I'm a little late to the party and not really a rockhounder per se, so I am not really adept at geology but I get out metal detecting and do find some goodies. Please excuse me if I don't use the correct terms.

Being in Wyoming, there are an abundance of gems and geologic formations as well as fossilized formations. We are right in the center of the great western seaway. During my metal detecting, I have found garnets, quartz, agates, emeralds, petrified wood, petrified poop, dinosaur teeth, a shark tooth, several crystals, and a few arrowheads.
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If I'm not mistaken, Wyoming has one of the two major occurences of diamonds in the US, the other, as @oldngray just shared, is in Arkansas on national forest land, and is open to the public for mining. You see a report of a really awesome find there every now and again. I try to do some metal detecting, but to really get it into it helps to have nicer equipment. Three channels I like on Youtube are nuggetnoggin, Dan Hurd and Matt Mattson.
 
scooby0048

scooby0048

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Operational needs said:
Don’t forget Jesus! You didn’t melt him down did you?
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No, not going to either. Just such a unique piece can't bring myself to sell it or melt it.

2033 said:
Wyoming has one of the two major occurences of diamonds in the US, the other, as @oldngray just shared, is in Arkansas
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That is true. I'm sure that I have come across raw diamonds before but I couldn't tell the difference between them and some other stones. The few raw diamonds I saw from my rockhounding buddy's collection looked like any other rock as far as I was concerned.
 
oldngray

oldngray

nowhere special
scooby0048 said:
No, not going to either. Just such a unique piece can't bring myself to sell it or melt it.



That is true. I'm sure that I have come across raw diamonds before but I couldn't tell the difference between them and some other stones. The few raw diamonds I saw from my rockhounding buddy's collection looked like any other rock as far as I was concerned.
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Most raw diamonds look like gravel to me. Very few are gem quality.
 
zubenelgenubi

zubenelgenubi

I'm a star
scooby0048 said:
No, not going to either. Just such a unique piece can't bring myself to sell it or melt it.



That is true. I'm sure that I have come across raw diamonds before but I couldn't tell the difference between them and some other stones. The few raw diamonds I saw from my rockhounding buddy's collection looked like any other rock as far as I was concerned.
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Do a scratch test. If you have any garnet still that would be an excellent test material. Garnets are just behind sapphire on the hardness scale, and sapphire is the hardest next to diamonds. If your sample can scratch a garnet, and it doesn't have the qualities of a sapphire it is almost certainly a diamond. Diamonds also conduct heat really well, which is why they are sometimes referred to as "ice", because they will feel cool to the touch.
 
zubenelgenubi

zubenelgenubi

I'm a star
A few random pics of some of my collection.

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Not sure what this one is, some sort of quartz/agate.

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Another shot of my rainbow jaspers.

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This appears to be a cluster of dolomite crystals.
 
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