Rocks
FAVORITE ROCKS AND MINERALS

I remember taking that picture as if it were yesterday. It was going to be a picture of my brother with me in the mirror taking a picture of my brother with me in the mirror taking a picture of my brother...for infinity. So vanished my dreams.

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                    Essay on Opals

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I say this is Steve as I remember shooting the picture and being disappointed that I didn't see myself in the mirror...
and myself in the mirror... in which I see myself in the mirror...in which I see...

Favorite Agate Again.jpg

Augite from Red Mountain.jpg
I collected this mineral in 1969 or so.
  
                  Jeff's Cool Rock          1959 or 1960 or something crystals brackie, etc.

 
Quartz crystals we've had since, oh, 1959???  I dreamed that I had a big piece of rose quartz. I went to Jan's place in the desert he had it! He gave it to me.  So you see here Jan Bradbury in the 80s with rose quartz.    AND        Jan Bradbury with the same rose quartz October 28, 2014


Jan and rose quartz.jpg
 
LEFT: A favorite rock I found in 1958 at the East Verde River (above is a piece of Jan Bradbury's copy of EFR's WASP) MIDDLE: A white rock from our 1958 house in Tempe, Arizona. I put felt on the bottom. RIGHT: The giant Apache Tear my Uncle Mole found. I polished it many years ago. Perhaps I shouldn't have.



ApacheTearsBlades.jpg




Moonstone Bay Rocks 1.jpg



Glass Beach Pebbles Fort Bragg California August 2008.jpg


Old picture of Rocks.jpg


Crossbedding in Pebbles.jpg


Vishnu Schist New Photo.jpg


tiger eye 2.jpg

tiger eye 1.jpg

Vishnu Schist 1.jpg


Tom Mineral Show MCC Al Tomas Host.jpg

34. Limestone

As a child, I had a little bottle of sulfuric acid with an eyedropper that I used to test whether a rock was limestone. If it was, a drop of the acid on it would produce bubbles and the sound of bacon frying. Limestone frequently contains fossils, and for this reason it's always been a favorite stone of mine.
When I was forty, I became infatuated with fossils, and every weekend I would go around different parts of Arizona with a geologist's pick.
In my hometown and its surroundings, there are almost no sedimentary rocks except for a few strata on a single hill where millions of years ago a river flowed and deposited sand and mud that hardened and became sandstone and shale. I managed to find fossils in those rocks, but there was no limestone there.
In northern Arizona, there is a thick stratum of limestone that is called the Kaibab limestone. This limestone dates back to the Permian period, which began 299 million years ago and lasted 47 million years. This stone forms the uppermost part of the Grand Canyon. Millions of years ago, river waters dissolved great sections of these strata and the limestone was deposited once again in vast areas farther south. While you are driving on the highway from Phoenix to Flagstaff, this white limestone can be seen in the desert along the road where it has taken the form of mesas and cliffs.
Near the highway, there is a body of water called Montezuma's Well. It's a giant hole with limestone cliffs. At the bottom, there is a deep well. My father studied it for many years. He found turtles in the well that had incorporated the limestone to form their shells. Therefore, when my father measured the isotope carbon-14 in those shells, it seemed as if the turtles were millions of years old.

In 1991, I went by plane to Utah and rented a car. I drove to Wyoming to a place on the plains called Warfield Springs. It's a remote area with a spring and a pond of fresh water. They say that there were a lot of battles there over the water.
I paid to have access to the quarry there and began to look for fossils. The limestone of the strata wasn't very old; it was deposited just twenty million years ago, but it contained the fossils of many species of extinct fish. They gave me a good quality Swiss chisel and with this along with my hammer I was able to break open the rocks to reveal fossils. I found a great number of fish. The biggest hangs now on the wall of a bedroom in my house.
I have never had s
uch a strong infatuation as the one I had with fossils, but it wasn't inextricable: I am no longer infatuated with fossils. The madness has passed.



35. Obsidian

You can find in Arizona semiprecious stones called Apache tears. They’re little round pebbles of obsidian. The name comes from a legend about a massacre of warriors from the Apache tribe. According to the legend, the native maidens met at the site, began to cry, and their tears turned into stone.
There’s a place about forty minutes from where I live where you can collect hundreds of these semiprecious stones. You pay to enter, and they give you a bucket. I visited the site when I was a child. I remember that my uncle Mole accompanied us, and he found one the size of an egg. He gave it to me, and I still have it at home. When I was twenty, I went again with my father, and we filled the buckets to the brim with those Apache tears.
Forty years ago in the corn fields around the little town San Andres in Mexico, you could find little faces made of clay that centuries ago had been fire hardened. The majority of them were faces of people, but we also found figures of jaguars and porpoises. Even more common in the fields, however, were the flakes of obsidian. They were like blades with sharp edges, and there were a lot of them. As I understand it, to make something similar to a sword, the Aztecs glued those blades of obsidian on the edge of a wooden paddle, and this weapon was used without much success against the steel swords of Hernan Cortes’s soldiers. No long ago, my younger brother went to Cholula and when he came back, he told me that there were no longer any fields there.       



On the left: two faces from the fields in Cholula. On the right: two blades of obsidian from the same fields, two Apache tears from Arizona, and the big one that my uncle found.

When my father was young, he always had to write an essay before he could go outside to play.
“I learned how to write well,” he said. “But my father was a pretty hard man to demand so much from a youngster. He was never satisfied with the first draft. He’d read what I had composed and say that it wasn’t written properly yet, and then I would have to rewrite the essay.”
My father told me that he once wrote an essay entitled, “An Ancient Tragedy,” which had to do with some Indians in the West that died when a volcano erupted in Arizona. He told me about other stories that he had written, and many had western themes. This always surprised me a little because he was from New England. One day, when I must have been thirty-five years old, we were in our Arizona house in the forest at the foot of a snowy extinct
volcano, and my father looked through the big window at the volcano and said, “When I was about fourteen years old, I walked over there, and I remember that I found a little cliff of obsidian.”
I had never heard of an obsidian cliff. I didn’t think that that rock could form that way. But that was beside the point.
 “What?” I asked. “You were here when you were fourteen?”
“We lived in Arizona, Tom,” he said. “I went to high school in Tucson.”
I hadn’t the faintest idea that he had lived in Arizona when he was young. He lived here only two years, but it surprised me quite a bit that I had never been aware of that.

Today, as I write, I see through the same window the same volcano, and I can see the forest where my mother and I used to go in search of arrowheads. They were made of black  obsidian.

There are high tension wires in some areas of the forest, and between and around the towers that support them, there are no trees or much grass, and there you can see the naked ground where the rain and the melted snow have uncovered the arrowheads. We found them there. My mother always kept them on the window sill, and many times I have asked myself, “Where could they have gone?”
Yesterday, I found a small jar in a closet, and it’s here this very moment on the desk where I’m writing. It’s full of arrowheads and flat flakes of obsidian.

36. Quartz

The vast majority of semiprecious stones are made of quartz: agate, tiger's eye, opal, chalcedony, and rose quartz. All of them are varieties of quartz and are stones that are harder than glass.

Agate
Agate is known for its bands of color and is one of the most common semiprecious stones in the display cases of rock hounds. It comes in a wide variety of colors. Every town used to have a rock shop. In fact, in our neighborhood, a man converted his house into a rock shop. His name was Mr. Van Horn. He liked to show us his treasures. One day he showed my brother and me a slab of agate that he had polished.
 “Look, boys,” he said. “I'm going to the moon.”
It was as if someone had painted a spaceship on the slab of rock. The agate was almost black, and on a dark background, there was a white rocket of chalcedony shooting jets and flames of yellow quartz behind.

Tiger's Eye
I've always liked tiger's eye, which in reality is a mixture of quartz and asbestos. The golden filaments of asbestos reflect the light, and the stone gleams. The threads of asbestos make lines on the rock, and if you cut it so that a single line remains in the central part, the rock resembles the eye of a tiger with the linear pupil of a cat.

Opal
Opals crack easily because they contain molecules of water, but it would be difficult to find a prettier gem. From within some of them, all of the colors of the rainbow shine while others sparkle with a single color.
The memory comes to mind of what happened in the year 1963 when we were touring Mexico. The car broke down in the mountains, and my parents were trying to fix it. Meanwhile, I walked off into the countryside
where a snake bit me. I went back screaming, and I saw that there was a green pickup truck parked next to the car. It was one of the official Mexican vehicles that were used to assist travelers on the highway. The driver was a mechanic as was his partner, and they were trying to start the car. I saw that my mother had in her hands some opals that she had bought in the city. She put them in her purse.
“What were you doing with the opals?” I asked.
“I was going to give them to the robbers who just left.”
“Robbers?”
“Yes. When the pickup arrived, they took off. What's wrong with you?”
“A snake bit me!”
“Good!” said my father. “You deserve it. Quit picking up snakes!”

Chalcedony
Chalcedony looks a lot like the white wax that has melted from a candle. I like to hike in the desert where I very often see some little pieces of this mineral on the ground. In the hills around Saguaro Lake in Arizona, there are good examples of chalcedony scattered everywhere. Some of the bands in agate are made of chalcedony.

Rose Quartz
One night in the eighties, I dreamed that I had found a big piece of rose quartz, which is called in Spanish rubí de Bohemia. This mineral, of course, is not ruby, being composed of quartz and not corundum, and it's not the color of a ruby either. In English, it's well named: “rose quartz,” which means of course “quartz the color of a rose.” It really is rose colored. At any rate, I awoke from the dream and went that very day to the house of a friend of mine who lived in a place in the desert that he had named, “Rancho Recluse.”
Coincidentally, he had a big piece of rose quartz just like the stone in my dream. He gave it to me, and I still have it in my house.

Quartz Crystal
There's a place in Arizona called “Diamond Point.” It's located in a pine forest and throughout the forest you can see little ravines and dry arroyos, and in these areas, you can find “Arizona diamonds.” They aren't real diamonds but crystals of quartz. One Sunday, my father and my brothers and sisters got lost in the forest there when we were looking for the crystals. It took us five hours to find a road and
an hour more to get to the car where my mother was waiting for us.
That night, after we had returned home, my brother fell and hit his head on the bedroom floor. A little later, he saw the “Arizona diamonds” that we had collected and said,
“Where are these from? Did we go to Diamond Point?”
The blow to his head must have been pretty hard because he had forgotten everything that had happened.
When a quartz crystal is subjected to pressure, it produces a current of electricity. Therefore, crystal radios don't need batteries. Once, I bought one.
I raised pigeons in the sixties, and I sold some to another kid who paid me with a silver dollar, a big, heavy coin. Today, those coins are worth a lot more than a dollar, but in those days, a one-dollar bill was called a “silver certificate,” and you could exchange one in a bank for a silver coin that was worth a dollar. With this coin, I bought a crystal radio. The radio was shaped like a rocket ship. You changed the channels by pulling the nosecone.
The next day, the telephone rang. It was the man who had sold me the radio, and he wanted me to come to the store. He didn't say why.
When I arrived at the store, I saw that he was holding a jack knife in his right hand and the silver coin in the left.
“Look!” he said.
He began to to carve the silver coin with the knife. Great big silvery flakes were falling to the floor.
“It's a counterfeit coin, buddy. It's made of solid lead!”
It was very interesting, but I had no idea of what I could do about it. Then he told me. He wanted his money. I had to borrow it from my parents.
And the kid I sold the pigeons to never paid me back.


My friend Jan Bradbury that very day in the 80s with the rose quartz he gave me on his head
jan bradbury rose quartz OCT 28, 2014 B.jpg
jan bradbury rose quartz OCT 28, 2014 A.jpg

A crystal radio similar to the one I bought with the counterfeit coin.


Rocket Radio.png



34. Caliza

De niño, tenía una pequeña botella de ácido sulfúrico con un cuentagotas que yo usaba para averiguar si una piedra era caliza. Si lo era, una gota del ácido encima produciría burbujas y el
sonido del tocino al freírse. La caliza frecuentemente contiene fósiles y por eso siempre ha sido una piedra predilecta mía.
Cuando tenía cuarenta años, me enamoré de los fósiles y todos los fines de semana andaba por distintas partes de Arizona con un martillo geológico.
En mi pueblo y sus alrededores casi no hay piedras sedimentarias salvo unos estratos en una sola colina donde hace millones de años
corría un río que depositó arena y lodo que se endurecieron y llegaron a ser arenisca y esquisto. Logré encontrar fósiles en esas piedras pero no había caliza allí.
Hay en el norte de Arizona un grueso estrato de caliza que se llama la caliza de Kaibab. Esta
caliza se remonta a la época pérmica que empezó hace 299 millones de años y duró 47 millones de años. Ésta piedra forma la parte más alta del Gran Cañón. Hace millones de años las aguas fluviales disolvieron grandes secciones de este estrato y la caliza se depositó de nuevo en vastas áreas más al sur. Al viajar por carretera de Phoenix a Flagstaff se puede ver esa caliza blanca en el desierto a lo largo de la carretera donde ha tomado forma de mesetas y acantilados.
Cerca de la carretera hay una masa de agua llamada El Pozo de Moctezuma. Es un gran hoyo con acantilados de caliza. Al fondo hay un  pozo profundo. Mi padre lo estudió por muchos años. Encontró tortugas en el pozo que habían incorporado la caliza para formar sus caparazones. Por eso, cuando mi padre medía el isótopo carbono-14 en esos caparazones, parecía que las tortugas tenían millones de años.
En el año 1991 yo fui en avión a Utah y alquilé un coche. Fui manejando a Wyoming a un lugar en la llanura que se llama Warfield



Springs. Es un área solitaria con un ojo de agua y una charca de agua dulce. Se dice que había muchas batallas allí por el agua.
Pagué por el acceso a una cantera allí y empecé a buscar fósiles. La caliza del estrato no era muy viejo; se depositó hace solamente veinte millones de años, pero contenía los fósiles de muchas especies de peces extintos. Me dieron un cincel suizo de buena calidad y con ése y mi martillo podía romper las piedras para revelar los fósiles. Encontré muchos peces. El más grande ahora está colgado en la pared de una recámara en mi casa.
Nunca he tenido un enamoramiento tan fuerte como lo que tenía con los fósiles pero no era arraigado: ya no estoy enamorado de los fósiles. Ha pasado la locura.

35. Obsidiana

Se pueden encontrar en Arizona piedras finas que se llaman lágrimas de apache. Son pequeños guijarros redondos de obsidiana. El nombre proviene de una leyenda de una matanza de guerreros de la tribu apache. Según la leyenda, las doncellas indígenas se reunieron en el sitio, empezaron a llorar y sus lágrimas se volvieron piedras.
Hay un lugar a como cuarenta minutos de donde vivo donde se pueden recojer cientos de



estas piedras finas. Se paga la entrada y le dan una cubeta. Yo visité el lugar cuando era niño. Recuerdo que nos acompañó mi tío Mole y él encontró una del tamaño de un huevo. Me la dio y todavía la tengo en casa. Cuando tenía veinte años fui otra vez con mi padre y llenamos los baldes hasta los topes con esas “lágrimas de los apache.”
Hace cuarenta años en los maizales alrededor del pueblecito San Andrés en México se podían encontrar caritas de barro que hace siglos habían sido calentadas al fuego. La mayoría eran caritas de personas pero también encontramos figuras de jaguares y delfines. Aun más comunes en los campos, no obstante, eran las hojas de obsidiana. Eran como navajas con filos agudos y había muchísimas. Según lo que entiendo, para fabricar algo parecido a una espada, los aztecas pegaban tales hojas de obsidiana al borde de un palo de madera en forma de remo y ese arma se usaba sin mucho éxito contra las espadas de acero de los soldados de Hernán Cortés. Hace poco, mi hermano menor fue a Cholula y al regresar me informó de que ya no hay campos allí, solamente casas.






  
A la izquierda: dos caritas de los campos de Cholula. A la derecha: dos navajas de obsidiana de los mismos campos, dos “lágrimas de apache” de Arizona y la grandota que encontró mi tío.

Cuando mi padre era joven, siempre tenía que escribir un ensayo antes de que pudiera salir de la casa a jugar.
—Aprendí a redactar bien —él dijo—. Pero mi padre era un hombre bastante duro para demandar tanto de un niño. Nunca estaba satisfecho con la primera redacción. Él leía lo que yo había escrito y decía que todavía no estaba escrita debidamente y entonces yo tenía que redactar el ensayo con otras palabras.
Mi padre me dijo que una vez escribió un ensayo titulado “Una tragedia antigua” que tenía que ver con algunos indios del oeste que se murieron cuando hizo erupción un volcán en Arizona. Me habló de otros cuentos que él había escrito y muchos tenían temas del oeste. Eso siempre me sorprendía un poquito porque él era de Nueva Inglaterra. Un día cuando yo debía de tener treinta y cinco años, estábamos en nuestra casa arizonense en el bosque al pie

de un nevado volcán extinto y mi padre miró por la gran ventana al volcán y dijo:
—Cuando tenía como catorce años yo andaba por allí y recuerdo que encontré un pequeño acantilado de obsidiana.
Yo nunca había oído de un acantilado de obsidiana. No creía que esa piedra pudiera formarse así. Pero eso no venía al caso.
—¿Cómo? —pregunté—. ¿Estuviste aquí cuando tenías catorce años?
—Vivíamos en Arizona, Tom —dijo—. Yo fui a la secundaria en Tucson.
No tenía la más ligera idea de que él había vivido en Arizona cuando era joven. Vivió aquí solamente dos años pero me sorprendió mucho que nunca me hubiera enterado de eso.
Hoy mismo mientras escribo, veo por la misma ventana el mismo volcán y puedo ver el bosque donde íbamos mi madre y yo en busca de puntas de flecha. Eran de obsidiana negra.
Hay cables de alta tensión en algunas áreas del bosque y entre y alrededor de las torres que las apoyan no hay árboles ni mucha hierba.
Allí se puede ver el suelo desnudo donde la lluvia y la nieve derretida han dejado al descubierto las puntas de flecha. Allí las encontrábamos. Mi madre siempre las guardaba en el alféizar y muchas veces me he preguntado, “¿Dónde habrán ido?”

Ayer encontré un frasco pequeño en un armario y aquí ahora mismo está en el escritorio donde escribo. Está lleno de puntas de flecha y copos planos de obsidiana.

36. Cuarzo

La inmensa mayoría de las piedras finas son de cuarzo: ágata, ojo de tigre, ópalo, calcedonia y rubí de Bohemia. Todas son variedades de cuarzo y son piedras más duras que el vidrio.

Ágata
Ágata se conoce por sus bandas de color y es una de las piedras finas más comunes en las vitrinas de los coleccionistas de piedras. Incluye una gama amplia de colores. Hace años cada pueblo tenía una “tienda de piedras”. En efecto, en nuestra vecindad un señor había convertido su casa en una “tienda de piedras”. Se llamaba Sr. Van Horn. A él le gustaba enseñarnos sus tesoros. Un día nos mostró a mi hermano y a mí una rebanada de ágata que él  había lustrado.
—Fíjense muchachos —dijo—. Voy a la luna.
Era como si alguien hubiera pintado una nave espacial en la rebanada de piedra. El ágata era casi negra y sobre un fondo oscuro había un cohete blanco de calcedonia echando chorros y llamas de cuarzo amarillo detrás.


Ojo de tigre
Siempre me ha gustado el ojo de tigre, que en realidad es una mezcla de cuarzo y asbesto. Los filamentos dorados de asbesto reflejan la luz y así la piedra brilla. Los hilos de asbesto forman rayas, líneas en la piedra y si se corta de manera que quede una sola línea en la parte central, la piedra se asemeja a un ojo de un tigre con la pupila lineal de los gatos.

Ópalo
Los ópalos se quiebran fácilmente porque contienen moléculas de agua, pero sería difícil encontrar una gema más bella. Por dentro de algunos brillan todos los colores del arco iris mientras otros chispean con un solo color.
Me viene a la memoria lo que pasó en el año 1963 cuando estábamos recorriendo México. El coche se descompuso en las montañas y mis padres trataban de arreglarlo. Mientras tanto, yo andaba por el campo donde una víbora me picó.  Regresé gritando y veía que había una camioneta verde estacionada al lado del coche. Era uno de los vehículos oficiales del gobierno mexicano que se usaban para prestar asistencia a viajeros en la carretera. El chófer era mecánico como su compañero y ellos estaban tratando de hacer arrancar el coche. Vi que mi madre tenía en las manos algunos ópalos que había comprado en la ciudad. Los puso dentro de su bolsa.
—¿Qué estabas haciendo con los ópalos? —le pregunté.
—Iba a dárselos a los ladrones que acaban de irse.
—¿Ladrones?
—Sí. Al llegar la camioneta huyeron. ¿Qué te pasa?
—¡Una víbora me picó!
—Bueno —dijo mi padre—. Te lo tienes bien merecido. ¡Deja de coger las serpientes!

Calcedonia
Calcedonia es muy parecida a la cera blanca que se ha derretido de una vela. Me gusta ir de caminata en el desierto donde muy a menudo veo en el suelo algunos pedacitos de este mineral. En las colinas alrededor del Lago Saguaro en Arizona hay buenos ejemplares de calcedonia esparcidos por todas partes. Algunas de las bandas de ágata son de calcedonia.

Rubí de Bohemia
Una noche en los años ochenta soñé que había encontrado un gran pedazo de rubí de Bohemia. Este mineral por supuesto no es un verdadero rubí, ya que está compuesto de cuarzo y no de corindón, y no es del color de un rubí tampoco. En inglés tal vez esté mejor nombrado: rose quartz que quiere decir más o menos “cuarzo de color de rosa.” Verdaderamente es del color de una rosa. De todos modos, me desperté del sueño y fui ese mismo día a la casa de un amigo mío que vivía en un lugar del desierto que él había nombrado “Rancho del Recluso.” Por casualidad, él tenía un gran pedazo de rubí de Bohemia igual que la piedra de mi sueño. Me lo regaló y todavía lo tengo en casa.

Cristal de cuarzo
Hay un lugar en Arizona que se llama “Punto de Diamantes.” Está ubicado en un bosque de pinos y por el bosque se ven barrancos pequeños y arroyos secos, y en estas áreas se pueden encontrar “diamantes arizonenses.” No son diamantes de verdad sino cristales de cuarzo. Un domingo mi padre y mis hermanos nos perdimos en el bosque allí cuando estábamos buscando los cristales. Tardamos cinco horas en encontrar un camino y  una hora más en llegar al coche donde mi madre nos esperaba.
Esa noche cuando habíamos regresado a casa, mi hermano se cayó y se golpeó la cabeza en el piso de la recamara. Un poquito después vio los “diamantes arizonenses” que habíamos recogido y dijo:


—¿De dónde son estos? ¿Fuimos a Punto de Diamantes?
El golpe en la cabeza debió de ser bastante fuerte porque se le había olvidado todo lo que había sucedido.
Cuando un cristal de cuarzo está sometido a presión, produce una corriente de electricidad. Por eso las “radios de cristal” no necesitan pilas. Una vez me compré una.
Yo criaba palomas en los años sesenta y vendí algunos a otro chico que me pagó con un dólar de plata, una moneda grande y pesada. Hoy día tales monedas valen mucho más de un dólar, pero en esos días un billete de a uno se llamaba un “certificado de plata” y podías cambiarlo en un banco por una moneda de plata que valía un dólar. Con esa moneda yo compré una “radio de cristal.” La radio tenía la forma de un cohete espacial. Se cambiaban los canales al jalar el morro.
Al siguiente día sonó el teléfono. Era el hombre que me había vendido la radio y quería que yo fuera a la tienda. No me dijo por qué.
Al llegar a la tienda, vi que él sostenía una navaja en la mano derecha y la moneda de plata en la izquierda.
—¡Mira! dijo.
Empezó a tallar la moneda con la navaja. Grandes copos plateados caían al piso.


—Es una moneda falsa, mi amigo. ¡Es de puro plomo!
Era muy interesante pero no tenía ni idea de lo que podría hacer yo. Luego me dijo. Quería su dinero. Yo tuve que pedirlo prestado de mis padres.
Y el muchacho a quien vendí las palomas nunca me reembolsó.
Mi amigo Jan Bradbury ese mismo día en los años 80 con el rubí de Bohemia que me regaló encima de la cabeza
jan bradbury rose quartz OCT 28, 2014 B.jpg


jan bradbury rose quartz OCT 28, 2014 A.jpg Una radio de cristal semejante a la que yo compré con la moneda falsa


Rocket Radio.png



 Granite ain't gneiss and that ain't no schist.jpg


Moonstone Bay Rocks 2.jpg
These are from 1971 from Moonstone Bay in Rhode Island.


Obsidian Arrowhead a.jpg

Obsidian Arrowhead b.jpg

Obsidian Arrowhead c.jpg


Hazelnut Pills Filberts Tablets.jpg


tab from rocky point.jpg


favorite agate1.jpg

pyrolucite dendrites4.jpg

favorite agate2.jpg

slate from vermont2.jpg



shiny schisty rock from childhood.jpg



glittery first man in space rock.jpg

rose quartz and other rocks AND FIRST MAN IN SPACE ROCK.jpg

rose quartz schist 2125.jpg

s
Caliche 3.jpg

Caliche 2.jpg

Caliche 1.jpg


Chalcedony with orangeish yellow.jpg



schist nice.jpg

pioneer shale b.jpg

Little Colorado Mud 1.jpg

Vermont Slate Sunset Lake May 1992.JPG

Vermond Slate Sunset Lake May 1992.jpg

Little Colorado Mud 2.jpg

Gina's jasper Pigeon bands Mom's opals and obsidian.jpg

Rocks from the Roof of 2015 Sierra Vista.jpg

Apache tear in matrix.jpg

Cross bedding small stone.jpg

petrified wood xc.jpg

Vishnu Schist.jpg

Pyrolucite Dentrites.jpg

Pyrolucite Dendrite favorite rock like trees picture stone.jpg

TV Stone.jpg

Orange polished glass.jpg




Metate.jpeg

Metate2.jpeg

Metate3.jpeg
tab mole's apache tear hoe trilobite eraser stamp marijuana leaf arrowhead.jpg
Lake Itasca Rock July 2000.jpg
agate like my favorite one.jpg
Apache tear in matrix.jpg

Banded Agate Favorite rock 2.jpg
Banded Agate Favorite rock 3.jpg
Banded Agate Favorite rock.jpg

Chalcedony with orangeish yellow.jpg
Cross bedding on a polished stone.jpg
Cross bedding small stone.jpg
Crossbedding favorite small stone next to similar stone.jpg
Favorite old agate back 2.jpg
Favorite old agate back.jpg
Favorite old agate.jpg
Gina's jasper Pigeon bands Mom's opals and obsidian.jpg
Iron stone with red Iron pyrite.jpg
Jeff's Cool Rock 1.jpg
Jeff's Cool Rock 2.jpg
Little Colorado Mud 1.jpg
Little Colorado Mud 2.jpg
pioneer shale b.jpg
pioneer shale.jpg
schist nice.jpg
schist.jpg

Vermont Slate Sunset Lake May 1992.JPG



Moonstone Bay Rocks 3.jpg

Lake Itasca Rock July 2000.jpg

OPALS


Week-end Rock Hound Opals 2.jpg


Week-end Rock Hound Opals 1.jpg

Week-end Rock Hound.jpg

rocks pottery.jpg

slate from vermont1.jpg



Garnets and rubies Rock.jpg
On Nov 17, 2020, I went out in my back yard and found in the gravel this rock. I recognized it as a favorite since I was seven or eight years old. I used to think they were rubies but I guess they're garnets. Now, I've brought it inside and it has its place in my cabinet. How it got out in the yard is the Mexican proverbial mystery inside an enigma—wrapped in a tortilla!

QUARTZ CRYSTAL STUDY
BILLY RICHARDSON WANTED TO CUT OUT THE ONE BIG CRYSTAL. THANK GOD THIS WASN'T DONE.
THE OLD GUY ACROSS THE STREET CRITICIZED ALL OF OUR ROCKS EXCEPT THIS ONE THAT HE SAID HE WOULDN'T MIND HAVING HIMSELF.

crystal 1.jpg

crystal 2.jpg

crystal 3.jpg


crystal 4.jpg


crystal 5.jpg



Banded Agate Favorite rock 2.jpg

pioneer shale.jpg

agate like my favorite one.jpg

Banded Agate Favorite rock 3.jpg

Tiger Eye Raw 4.jpg

Banded Agate Favorite rock.jpg

Tiger Eye Raw 1.jpg

Favorite old agate back.jpg

Tiger Eye Raw 3.jpg

Pyrolucite dentrites 2.jpg

Tiger Eye Raw 2.jpg

Favorite old agate back 2.jpg

schist.jpg

Crossbedding favorite small stone next to similar stone.jpg

Obsidian blades aa.jpg

Favorite old agate.jpg

Cross bedding on a polished stone.jpg

Iron stone with red Iron pyrite.jpg


Obsidian blades aa.jpg
Orange polished glass.jpg
petrified wood xc.jpg
Pyrolucite Dendrite favorite rock like trees picture stone.jpg
Pyrolucite dentrites 2.jpg
Pyrolucite Dentrites.jpg
Rocks from the Roof of 2015 Sierra Vista.jpg
Tiger Eye Raw 1.jpg
Tiger Eye Raw 2.jpg
Tiger Eye Raw 3.jpg
Tiger Eye Raw 4.jpg
TV Stone.jpg
Vermond Slate Sunset Lake May 1992.jpg
Vishnu Schist.jpg
Red Mountain Augite
A favorite red agage.jpg
amethyst polished.jpg
Another familar agate.jpg
Apache tears I sanded but never polished.jpg
Moonstone Bay Rocks 1.jpg
Moonstone Bay Rocks 2.jpg
Moonstone Bay Rocks 3 (1).jpg
Moonstone Bay Rocks 3.jpg
Moonstone Bay Rocks 5.jpg


Mica from Alaska and the Envelope.jpg
COLLECTED IN 1955 BY WENDY COLE


rose quartz schist 2125.jpg

Rock Room
By Jean Cole
    Sometimes I sleep in the rock room.
    It is peaceful there and safe,
         a place of security.

    Fish fossils line the walls
                and hide in closets.

    Rock instruments lean companionably
           against stereo systems, their noise
           muted.

    Against the wall lies a bed of such comfort
           one is tempted never to leave.

    During my first rock room stays, I was very ill.
           The rock room master visited me
           twice daily -- before work and after work.

    My weak, transparent arms were grasped
           each day by a rock-hard arm and fist,
           lending strength.

    The rock strength seeped deep into my body,
           maintaining my sanity, my health
           and my love.

     Now each time I visit the rock room I remember.
     Now it is a place of assurance -- of reminders that
           always there is a strength greater than mine,
          
     Now each time I sleep ina place of safety and love.

    Today I am three-thousand miles away, but I can still
           feel the strength in that arm, beckoning me back,
           telling me there is always a place for me in the
     Rock room.ways there is a strength greater
    This refuge is only available at certain times
    These times are always the times that I need it.

    In addition to inside, the outside is filled with
          swaying branches, soft breezes and night music.

    Such music comes echoing from the rock instruments
        but filtered through the leaves it leaves a softer sound.




Chalcedony with orangeish yellow.jpg



schist nice.jpg

pioneer shale b.jpg

Little Colorado Mud 1.jpg

Vermont Slate Sunset Lake May 1992.JPG

Vermond Slate Sunset Lake May 1992.jpg

Little Colorado Mud 2.jpg

Gina's jasper Pigeon bands Mom's opals and obsidian.jpg

Rocks from the Roof of 2015 Sierra Vista.jpg

Apache tear in matrix.jpg

Cross bedding small stone.jpg

petrified wood xc.jpg

Vishnu Schist.jpg

Pyrolucite Dentrites.jpg

Pyrolucite Dendrite favorite rock like trees picture stone.jpg

TV Stone.jpg

Orange polished glass.jpg

tab mole's apache tear hoe trilobite eraser stamp marijuana leaf arrowhead.jpg
Lake Itasca Rock July 2000.jpg
agate like my favorite one.jpg
Apache tear in matrix.jpg

Banded Agate Favorite rock 2.jpg
Banded Agate Favorite rock 3.jpg
Banded Agate Favorite rock.jpg

Chalcedony with orangeish yellow.jpg
Cross bedding on a polished stone.jpg
Cross bedding small stone.jpg
Crossbedding favorite small stone next to similar stone.jpg
Favorite old agate back 2.jpg
Favorite old agate back.jpg
Favorite old agate.jpg
Gina's jasper Pigeon bands Mom's opals and obsidian.jpg
Iron stone with red Iron pyrite.jpg
Jeff's Cool Rock 1.jpg
Jeff's Cool Rock 2.jpg
Little Colorado Mud 1.jpg
Little Colorado Mud 2.jpg
pioneer shale b.jpg
pioneer shale.jpg
schist nice.jpg
schist.jpg

Vermont Slate Sunset Lake May 1992.JPG




Banded Agate Favorite rock 2.jpg

pioneer shale.jpg

agate like my favorite one.jpg

Banded Agate Favorite rock 3.jpg

Tiger Eye Raw 4.jpg

Banded Agate Favorite rock.jpg

Tiger Eye Raw 1.jpg

Favorite old agate back.jpg

Tiger Eye Raw 3.jpg

Pyrolucite dentrites 2.jpg

Tiger Eye Raw 2.jpg

Favorite old agate back 2.jpg

schist.jpg

Crossbedding favorite small stone next to similar stone.jpg

Obsidian blades aa.jpg

Favorite old agate.jpg

Cross bedding on a polished stone.jpg

Iron stone with red Iron pyrite.jpg


Obsidian blades aa.jpg
Orange polished glass.jpg
petrified wood xc.jpg
Pyrolucite Dendrite favorite rock like trees picture stone.jpg
Pyrolucite dentrites 2.jpg
Pyrolucite Dentrites.jpg
Rocks from the Roof of 2015 Sierra Vista.jpg
Tiger Eye Raw 1.jpg
Tiger Eye Raw 2.jpg
Tiger Eye Raw 3.jpg
Tiger Eye Raw 4.jpg
TV Stone.jpg
Vermond Slate Sunset Lake May 1992.jpg
Vishnu Schist.jpg
Red Mountain Augite
A favorite red agage.jpg
amethyst polished.jpg
Another familar agate.jpg
Apache tears I sanded but never polished.jpg
Moonstone Bay Rocks 1.jpg
Moonstone Bay Rocks 2.jpg
Moonstone Bay Rocks 3 (1).jpg
Moonstone Bay Rocks 3.jpg
Moonstone Bay Rocks 5.jpg