For instance, the Finger Lakes region of central New York is known as “wine country” but one of its unexpected collectibles is the lake beach glass, sometimes still faintly bearing the etched lettering of its origin story, found with particular prevalence along the eastern side of Seneca Lake at Lodi Point Beach State Park.

Why? Old wine bottles: Castaways of vineyards past.

But rarer still are the ancient maritime castaways of ale and rum bottles from the Golden Age of Piracy (1650-1730), known as “pirate glass,” that wash up on the beaches along the Caribbean, North American eastern seaboard, West African, and Indian Ocean shipping lanes and trading ports.

Such Shanghai surprises tantalize collectors but not every dark piece tells the same story. Because, as Captain Jack Sparrow liked to say, “Not all treasure’s silver and gold, mate.”

Sea Glass Color – The Dark Side

Pirate glass is colloquially described as “black” but the intensity of what is more likely to be blue, brown, green, purple or red glass has been deepened by the addition of cobalt, copper or iron oxides; or during the glass-making process, the addition of iron slag, or coal and wood ash.

Why darken glass? To extend the life of products and their transport because darker glass protects valuable liquids (like alcohol or oil) from degeneration by sunlight.

The same properties added to deepen color also improve the structural integrity of the glass and make it less likely to break during handling and storage.

At sea, water may turn too contaminated to drink, but not ale or rum. Or a seafaring elixir of lime, sugar and rum often kept aboard in dark bottles as a survivalist measure against scurvy.

The strong, dark glass was perfect, beachcombing blogger Kirsti Scott notes, “For pirates on seafaring ships!”

Stones & Scallywags

Black joins gray, orange, teal, turquoise, red and yellow as the seven most difficult sea glass colors to discover. Pirate glass looks black but not all black glass is old enough to truly be “pirate.”

Well after the 17th-century heyday of pirate ships, early 19th-century decorative black glassware, known as Black Amethyst, was produced, as were black glass buttons to accent Victorian French fashion and, in more mundane industrial use, for light bulb insulators produced in plants like the General Electric and Vitrite Company in Ohio.

Slag Glass

Vitrite also happens to be the name of the slag glass often used as a dielectric, or electrical insulator, at the bottom of common light bulbs and consisting mainly of ground glass with “copious amounts of lead and manganese oxides, the latter being responsible for the dark purple color.”

In fact, Black Amethyst has become its own desirable sea glass collectible, with pieces more than 80 years old washing up along the Great Lakes and particularly Lake Erie, where these incandescent light bulb plants operated.

Still, other black beach glass pieces can be found downstream of defunct glassmaking factories, the remnants of bars or nuggets used to colorize clear glass. Also, blue-black glass traces to gin bottles from Holland, and red-black glass to Portugal.

While no less lovely to look at or bring home, these glass pieces lack the unique merits to claim provenance beneath the Jolly Roger.

Ahoy, Pirates

What helps qualify a piece of black sea glass as “pirate glass” is age (glass from the mid-17th century was hand blown) and location (albeit not all seafaring routes had to be Caribbean).

Pirate glass is noteworthy for its size, for the number of bubbles trapped inside its glass, and for its primitive density that (when held up to light) can reveal a “glow” along the edges of its true dark amber, olive green, or purple color. Older pieces may be so dense and opaque that light will not shine through them.

“Pirate ships were no strangers to the shores of the Outer Banks [of the Carolinas], and neither were their rum bottles. After hundreds of years of these bottles being tossed around by the sometimes extremely violent and vicious waters of Hatteras Island, these black chunks occasionally appear on the shore, to a beachcomber’s delight,” collector Kristin Hissong recounted in 2020 for the Island Free Press.

Knowing What to Look For

The trick is knowing what you’re looking for because pirate glass, by virtue of its dark color, blends almost too well into a beach’s natural background and can look a lot like any other average black stone.

“The first time I found a piece of pirate glass,” Kristin says, “I was going back and forth over one little shell bed gathering other treasures. When I first noticed the piece in the sand, I dismissed it as asphalt. It was about four inches long and looked like a black chunk of NC Highway 12.

“I didn’t know sea glass could be so big or so dark. But right before I decided to leave, I thought I might as well pick it up, and to my delight, it was a huge chunk of black sea glass.

“When I held it up to the light, it glowed a deep olive green and the glassmaker’s breath was caught in an air bubble inside the glass,” she noted.

“Ahoy matey, we found Pirate Glass!”

This story about sea glass color previously appeared in Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe. Story by L.A Sokolowski.

The post Black Pirate Sea Glass Color first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

Where to Find Fossil Fish – Dig Sites

Two sites outside the small town of Kemmerer, Wyoming, offer pay-to-dig. Just make an appointment or register, show up and they will take great care of you, showing you how to fish… with a hammer and chisel.

One site is the Warfield Quarry, also known online as Fossil Safari, and the other is the American Quarry.

While visiting the pay-to-dig sites in Kemmerer, it is a must to travel a short distance away to the Fossil Butte National Monument. Sorry no collecting here, but the museum boasts a tremendous variety of animals and plants from the Green River Formation. Cut unobtrusively into the hillside, the visitor center is filled with wonderous fossils, a great compilation of the ecosystem 50 million years ago.

The Green River Formation

Pay-to-dig sites are part of the Green River Formation where there are hundreds, no, thousands of fish trapped in rock that was once a series of fairly shallow lakes. Streams and rivers drained the surrounding mountains enabling the formation of this special fossil location.

The Green River Formation is known as a lagerstatte, which loosely translated from German means “storage place.” The area butts up against the limestone of the Wasatch, Unita, Wind River and other mountain ranges. It is an area where fabulous and spectacularly preserved fossils including plants and animals represent a snapshot of life living within that ecosystem.

When & How was this Site Made?

The Eocene period, about 53 to 48 million years ago, was a transition from a warm and moist environment to one that was hotter and drier. This is evidenced by some of the fossil finds in the area. Palm fronds, crocodile and sycamore leaf remains point to a warm moist environment and deciduous tree leaves point to a drier climate. The mountains were partially made up of limestone. During heavy rains, water would run down into the streams and rivers bringing with it sand, mud and silt sediments filled with dissolved minerals such as calcium oxides, inorganic elements and calcium components.

This would wash into the lakes fouling the water, making it turbid and in some cases changing the pH levels. At times the change in the chemical composition of the water was detrimental to the life forms in it.

Fish would die along with many of the other creatures and become buried in the silty sediments. Paleontologists can tell by looking at the various layers, which were deposited during times of drought and which were deposited in times of flood. It is also possible by studying the cross-section of the quarry where the best location is to find fossil fish.

The spectacular fossilization and completeness of the fossil fish is because they were buried quickly. Even the bottomfeeding scavengers were not quick enough or did not survive to disarticulate the bodies of the dead fish. The sediments filtered down to the bottom of the lake and covered the creatures with thin layers. It is within these layers that spectacular fish specimens may be found.

Where to Find Fossil Fish – Digging

In specific horizons, one of which is called the split fish layer, a finely laminated limestone is present that entombed many fish. This is easy to split and if the rock contains a fossil, it splits so that you can easily see it in both a positive fish fossil and also a negative impression. The fish are beautifully preserved with bones, gill covers, ribs and even scales intact. In some cases, a bit of matrix, the limestone that clings to the fish skeleton, is still present. It is quite easy to remove. In many instances, all that is needed is a dental pick, or a pin vise to gently remove excess rock matrix. You must be very careful not to go too deep into the limestone so it’s best to attack it at an acute angle.

This limestone is so fine-grained that many plants and insects that fell into the water or were washed in from rivers and streams are also seen in spectacular detail.

In some areas birds, reptiles, turtles and even crocodiles may be found all preserved in exquisite detail.

This story about where to find fossil fish previously appeared in Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe! Story and photos by Joseph “PaleoJoe” Kchodl.

The post Where to Find Fossil Fish first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

Beautiful Petoskey Stones

Walking along the northern Lower Peninsula shorelines of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, it is easy to see this fossil’s natural attraction on people. Looking into the water, one can sometimes see this coral, rounded by relentless waves, worn smooth showing its beautiful internal structure. It is easy to see that rockhounds, jewelry makers and almost everyone would be taken by this attractive fossil.

Once removed from the water, however, it quickly dries and loses its bright polished shine. To achieve that permanent shine, it is necessary to polish the rock by grinding and sanding it and finishing it with a polishing compound to bring out the beautiful luster of the stone.

What Corals Make Petoskey Stones?

Petoskey stones are fossilized corals. There are at least nine species of Hexagonaria, but the only true Petoskey Stone is the H. percarinata. These corals are marine organisms that are made up of many, sometimes thousands of hard calcium carbonate exoskeletons called corallites. Each corallite contains a polyp – an individual multi-cellular animal.

There are two major types of corals – solitary corals growing by themselves, and colonial corals, growing in a tight community of genetically identical polyps. The polyp is the actual living individual creature that inhabits each corallite. As the coral grows, it extends the calcium carbonate exoskeleton and seals off part of the base.

Symbiotic Relationships

Corals live in a symbiotic relationship with a variety of marine algae. Although corals have stinging tentacles and are able to capture food such as zooplankton, the algae provide the energy corals need to survive.

Food is captured by tentacles and brought down to the center where the mouth and stomach are located. The algae use a process called photosynthesis to provide additional energy to the coral polyp. In turn, the hard calcium carbonate exoskeleton of the coral and stinging tentacles provide protection for the algae.

The coral polyp produces waste products that the algae needs for its survival. Because sunlight is needed for the algae’s photosynthesis processes and sunlight only penetrates the ocean to a certain depth, corals normally grow in shallow waters from 30 to 150 feet.

Hexagonaria Coral

Hexagonaria coral is a colonial marine animal that lived in warm shallow salt-water tropical seas. Prehistoric Michigan was once such an environment. During the Devonian Period some 419 -358 million years ago, Michigan was located much closer to the equator.

Much of Michigan’s bedrock is made up of huge limestone beds that underlie the surface soil. These large tracts of limestone bedrock are the remains of ancient coral reefs that filled the sea that once covered what is now Michigan. Ancient coral seas were full of a variety of creatures that included but were not limited to, corals -both solitary and colonial.

Each corallite of the Hexagonaria is made of a sometimes five but usually six-sided compartment which adjoined the others in the colony and created the elaborate six-sided hexagon. The radiating lines one sees in the Petoskey Stone are the septa and theca. The septa are the lines of division between each corallite and the theca are the internal radiating lines. These patterns of hexagon shapes and radiating lines are what will gives the Petoskey Stone its uniqueness among rocks.

Finding Petoskey Stones

The Hexagonaria are found across Michigan along lakeshores and rivers in the sediments commonly called the Traverse group. They are rounded fragments of the coral Hexagonaria. Some of these coral reefs still lie beneath the ground and some under the water of Little Traverse Bay.

Because of the wave and abrasive action of the sand, these stones are rounded and washed up on the beach. The action of ice moving also brings these stones into shallow water. The best time to hunt for Petoskey stones is in the spring as soon as the ice melts. But beware, it is a cold time to search! I have seen locals donning dry suits and walking in waist-deep water as ice floats by and picking up the stones before they even reach the shore.

How Did Petoskey Stones Get Their Name?

The name Petoskey is said to come from an old Odawa Indian legend. It is said that a French fur trader, Antoine Carre, came to Michigan traveling extensively in the area now known as Petoskey where he met and married an Odawa princess. In time, he was adopted by the local Odawa tribe and eventually was made their chief.

It is further told that in the spring of 1787 traveling with his wife on his way from near present-day Chicago, he camped near what is now Kalamazoo. During the night, his wife gave birth to a son. Legend says that as the morning sun rose, the sun’s rays fell upon the infant’s face, and his father pronounced his name shall be Petosegay. The translation of the Odawa Petosegay means sunbeam or rising sun or rays of dawn.

Petosegay became a fur trader like his father and also became quite wealthy. He owned much land in the Petoskey area, and a community was settled on the shores of Little Traverse Bay. The present location of the city of Petoskey stands as a tribute to Petosegay. Because these rounded and water-tumbled fossils were found in great abundance on the shores of Little Traverse Bay, they became known as Petoskey stones.

Becoming a State Stone

The Petoskey stone was made the state stone of Michigan by legislative action. Then-Governor George Romney signed House Bill 2297 in 1965. This legislation elevated this fossil to the prestigious position it now holds around the world. For visitors to the Great Lakes, a Petoskey stone find is often a must-do!

This story about Petoskey stones appeared in the September 2021 issue of Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe! Story by Joseph “Paleo Joe” Kchodl.  

The post Petoskey Stones: Where & How to Find Them first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

An Offer to Visit a Chrysoprase Mine

It happened that my friend Randy Polk, a top jewelry artist, was at a show looking for gem material with “gumdrop colors.” He found a dealer selling fine chrysoprase stone. The dealer also owned the chrysoprase mine and was looking for someone to help with publicity.

Randy told him about the articles I was doing for Rock and Gem. The owner, Ellie Christianos, got in touch with me and offered to bring Carol and me to Australia to visit the mine and write about it.

It took me a few seconds to say “Yes!”

Two months later we were at the mine.

Australian Chrysoprase

It may have been used by the ancients but the first productive deposit was opened in the Middle Ages in what is now Poland. This is the world’s largest deposit of chrysoprase which occurred in the ultramafic rocks which were the source of the nickel that gives chrysoprase its lovely green color.

The chrysoprase you see today is mainly from Queensland. That’s because the better chrysoprase deposits are in Australia in Queensland in the east and Kookynie near Kalgoorlie in the west.

The deposit near Kookynie was working full bore when I was there but the last I heard it is involved in legal matters and not producing. The mine is in the far Outback about 100 kilometers east of Perth.

Arriving in Australia

Carol and I were met at the Perth airport by Ellie’s lawyer who checked us into an elegant hotel before he took us to Ellie’s penthouse overlooking the Swan River.

After a day in Perth, we were flown to Kalgoorlie, a big gold camp with gorgeous Victorian-style buildings. The gold mine, an open pit and underground workings, was still operating. There our guide rented a car for the two-hour drive out to the mine, dodging kangaroos and emus on the way!

The road was dirt and crossed the outback desert. Many vehicles in the outback have what is called a “roo bar,” a heavy large steel fence-like bumper on the front to protect it from impact with kangaroos or cattle.

Chrysoprase, which is chalcedony with an assortment of nickel salts in it to give it a green color, formed in the thick veins of rock that make up the entire hill. Most of the rock is iron oxide goethite that’s not hard, so mining was relatively simple. They did not use explosives only a D-8 Caterpillar bulldozer with a huge ripping hook or finger on the back.

The ‘cat’ would traverse the hill up one side and down the other ripping up rocks veined with green chalcedony chrysoprase.

Following the ‘Cat’

The rocks were loaded with veins of green chalcedony that were broken into chunks by the dozer. The miners just followed behind the dozer with a hammer and buckets to gather the loose chunks of the green gem. In this way, they had mined tons of chrysoprase and the hill showed no signs of running out of gem material.

To collect, Carol and I followed the ‘cat’ picking and choosing the better dark green specimens and chipping off chunks of the better gem specimens. The only problem I had was choosing which pieces to pick up keeping in mind we were flying back to the U.S.

Once collected by miners, the gem-filled buckets of material were hauled off to another area of the camp and spread out for ease of sorting according to color and quality. The very best gem pieces were set aside for later pricing. The pieces of only good to average color were left in the open and priced lower.

I was told that area held no less than 10 tons of rough waiting for sorting and sale.

Choosing Specimens

When Carol and I had filled our collecting buckets, we took them back to camp and washed the specimens so we could sort through them. I set aside only the better pieces and returned the rest to the company stash. Later I returned to the hill and did more collecting in the untouched areas to get a better idea of the deposit and the material.

Ellie had already told us we could help ourselves. When I finally had what I thought was a fair amount of the best gem rough, I thanked Ellie. He expressed surprise at the small amount of gem chrysoprase I had.

When I mentioned my luggage problem, he offered to ship everything to me in Arizona so we added a bit more and he shipped it all.

I did spend some time walking around the area and noted several prospect holes where earlier prospectors had checked the deposit. It was pretty obvious the area was rich in potential as there were veins of chrysoprase exposed.

Visiting an Australian Pub

One evening, the miners asked if we wanted to go to a local pub. They piled us into a big 4×4 with a roobar and off we went at breakneck speed across the desert.

If there was a road I could not see it. We pulled up in front of a shack with a rusty corrugated metal roof and a single gas pump in front. This shack was the pub.

The building had two rooms separated by a liquor bar between them that faced into both rooms. Each side of the bar had four stools occupied by the dirtiest-looking miners I’ve ever seen. They worked in the local gold mine where the dirt and rocks are a rich brick red color. Water was scarce so washing was a sometimes thing. They were great guys, very friendly. They couldn’t stop telling stories and tales. One of them had just married off his daughter so he had to tell us all about the parade and wedding which was interesting in such a desolate area. A couple of dart boards hung on the wall and one wall had a heavy black line painted on it which was the high water mark when they had a rare rain storm. We had quite an evening there!

Chrysoprase Buyers

Another day a buyer from China showed up and spent a lot of time walking over the material in the sorting area. He was looking to make a big purchase. I learned they had two factories in China with about 7,000 women at lapidary machines carving objects of green chrysoprase, which I suspect was passed off as “jade.” I was amazed when he placed an order for 55 tons of the low-to-medium-grade chrysoprase.

When we left Western Australia we stayed in Sidney as Ellie’s guests. We checked out the zoo and the famous opera house then flew on to Hawaii for three days. When Carol and I got home, we immediately shared the chrysoprase with folks in our mineral club and gave the best pieces to Randy Polk who had gotten us the invitation. All in all, it was quite a rock hound trip!

This story about chrysoprase stone previously appeared in Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe. Story by Bob Jones.

The post Finding Chrysoprase Stone in Australia first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

Often quite different from their more familiar North American counterparts, including the list of state dinosaurs, and adorned with bizarre frills, bumps, dorsal sails, and crests, these new southern “terrible lizards” are changing many of our perceptions about dinosaurs.

As an example, consider the now-diminished status of the iconic Tyrannosaurus rex, the fiercest North American predator. The most widely recognized of all dinosaurs, T. rex had long been considered the biggest, baddest carnivore ever to walk the Earth. But now it seems that T. rex, whose name loosely means “king of the tyrant lizards,” is not really the king after all. It has recently been surpassed in both size and probable ferocity by Giganotosaurus from South America and Spinosaurus from Africa.

Dynamic Dinosaur Discoveries

Digging for dinosaurs in the Southern hemisphere is the latest chapter in dinosaur paleontology, a discipline that began in the late 1800s when dinosaur fossils were discovered in the American West, including the La Brea Tar Pits. At that time, the United States, as a rapidly developing nation, was ready and eager to fully exploit its dinosaur-fossil resources. It had paleontologists available to excavate the bones, museums, and universities to display them, and newspapers and magazines to publicize them.

Attracting worldwide attention, these fossil recoveries established the United States as the center of dinosaur excavation and research. During the following decades, many Americans grew up believing that such familiar North American dinosaurs as Tyrannosaurus, the long-necked sauropod Brontosaurus (now Apatosaurus), and the duck-billed hadrosaurs were representative of dinosaurs worldwide. But now, the plethora of recent southern-dinosaur discoveries are revealing that dinosaur diversity is far greater than previously realized.

Tectonic Plates

When the first dinosaurs appeared during the early Triassic Period some 240 million years ago, the Earth’s continental geography was radically different. Each a large, solid tectonic plate, the continents were grouped together into a supercontinent called Pangaea. Dinosaurs roamed freely across this vast landmass, shared many of the sames genes, and exhibited relatively little diversity.

But after dinosaurs had become well-established, Pangaea’s tectonic plates began to separate. By the dawn of the Cretaceous Period 145 million years ago, Pangaea had broken apart into two large landmasses: Laurasia to the north, consisting of the still-grouped, future continents of North America, Europe, and Asia; and Gondwana to the south, which included the future continents of Africa, South America, Australia, and Antarctica.

Shifting Continents Open Door of Fossils

The breakup of Pangaea into Laurasia and Gondwana, and the subsequent separation into the individual continents we know today, divided dinosaur communities into groups isolated by oceans. With gene-sharing no longer possible, these dinosaur groups began to evolve independently, developing features and traits suited to their specific environments.

Although the idea that continents could shift geographically had been suggested as early as 1600, it was not considered seriously until 1910 when German geophysicist Alfred Wegener observed that the coastal outlines of western Africa and eastern South America fit together as if they had once been joined. Citing similarities in particular African and South American plant and animal fossils, Wegener concluded that these two continents had once formed a single landmass, and, prior to this, all the continents had been consolidated into a single “supercontinent.” Wegener named this supercontinent “Pangaea” from the Greek words for “all earth.”

But because geologists could not yet explain the mechanics of continental movement, Wegener’s idea remained controversial. Finally, a half-century later, geologists realized that slowly circulating currents within the Earth’s semisolid mantle did indeed move the continents. This discovery of currents validated Wegener’s theory and led to the now-accepted principle of continental drift.

Perhaps the best-known South American dinosaur that developed through continental drift and subsequent isolated evolution is the carnivore Giganotosaurus (jig-a-NOT-a-SOR-us), a name meaning “giant southern lizard.” An amateur fossil hunter discovered Giganotosaurus’s bones in 1993 in the badlands of southern Argentina’s Neuquén Province.

Dino Relations

Despite their similar appearance, Giganotosaurus and T. Rex are not closely related. These two predators arose independently after the breakup of Pangaea. Giganotosaurus lived about 98 million years ago in South America, while T. rex existed some 30 million years later in North America.

Weighing 12 tons and stretching 45 feet from head to tail, Giganotosaurus, living in a prey-rich environment ideal for predators, was larger than T. rex. Unlike the conical teeth that T. rex used for crushing, Giganotosaurus had blade-shaped teeth better suited for slashing and slicing. It had stronger arms and claws, a longer skull, and prominent bony ridges above the eyes that may have been brightly colored to attract a mate. Argentina’s fossil-rich Neuquén Province also yielded the bones of the massive, long-necked sauropod Argentinosaurus (“Argentina lizard”). The rancher who found its bones in 1987 initially mistook them for huge pieces of petrified wood. But closer inspection showed them to be a massive leg bone and a six-foot-long vertebra of a previously unknown dinosaur.

Arguably the largest-known dinosaur, Argentinosaurus, which lived 95 million years ago, reached a length of 105 feet and weighed 90 tons. Thriving in lush forests, its extraordinary growth rate enabled 8-pound hatchlings to develop into 180,000-pound adults in just 15 years.

Another large, Cretaceous sauropod from Neuquén Province is Futalognkosaurus, a name meaning “giant chief lizard” in a regional, indigenous dialect. Discovered in 2002, this 100-foot-long sauropod had a prominent dorsal row of tall, shark-fin-shaped spines from its neck to its tail.

Argentinian Jurassic Icons

A smaller sauropod from Argentina, Amargasaurus, attained a length of 30 feet and weighed three tons. It lived 120 million years ago and also had a row of dagger-like, dorsal spines on its neck and back. Much taller than the spines of any other known sauropod, these may have served combined purposes of display, combat, and defense.

Dromaeosaurs, small, bipedal dinosaurs like the velociraptors that appeared in all three Jurassic Park movies, were known only in northern continents until the 2005 discovery of Buitreraptor (bwee-tre-RAP-tor) in Argentina. This small, five-foot-long, six-pound, bird-like dromaeosaur lived 95 million years ago and had a longer, flatter skull and more backward-curving teeth than its northern cousins. Like all velociraptors, it sported sharp, sickle-like claws on its big toes.

Although completely feathered, Buitreraptor (“vulture raider”) was flightless. But because its close relatives could fly, paleontologists believe that the ability to fly evolved twice, once among Gondwana dromaeosaurs and later among birds. Some paleontologists also believe that dromaeosaurs may actually have migrated by flight from Laurasia to Gondwana.

African Dinos

One of the first dinosaurs discovered in Africa was the huge theropod Spinosaurus (“spined lizard”). German paleontologists unearthed the first Spinosaurus skeleton in Egypt in 1912; although incomplete, its extremely large size attracted much attention. Unfortunately, these bones were later destroyed in the bombing of Germany during World War II.

Details about Spinosaurus remained a mystery until paleontologists excavated two nearly complete skeletons in Morocco in 1995. These bones showed that Spinosaurus, which lived 110 million years ago, was a ferocious, 13-ton carnivore and possibly the largest of all theropods. Its dorsal spines were ten times the length of the vertebrae. When connected with flesh and skin, these spines supported a large, dorsal “sail,” which likely served the multiple purposes of heat regulation, intimidation of other dinosaurs, and display during courtship.

Like modern crocodiles, Spinosaurus was at home on land and in water and hunted both terrestrial and aquatic prey. It was an excellent swimmer, and its sail may also have had a hydrodynamic function. Because of its size and bizarre appearance, Spinosaurus was chosen to “star” in Jurassic Park III, replacing Tyrannosaurus rex as
the film’s main antagonist.

Another Moroccan dinosaur is Carcharosaurus (“shark-toothed lizard”), a big theropod closely related to South America’s Giganotosaurus. It is named for teeth that closely resemble those of Carcharodon, the modern great white shark.

Modern Paleontological Hot Spot

The central-African nation of Niger has recently become another paleontological hot spot. Its northern Gadoufaoua Region in the Sahara now ranks as Africa’s most prolific source of late-Cretaceous dinosaur fossils. Recoveries include the bones of the five-ton sauropod Malawisaurus (“Malawi lizard”), named for the African nation where it was first found. Another is Ouranosaurus (“brave lizard,” after a nomadic term for “brave”), a slightly smaller sauropod with a massive dorsal “sail” that may have had a fat-storage function.
Some Niger dinosaurs have distinct crocodilian features, like Suchomimus (“crocodile mimic”), a 30-foot-long, three-ton theropod that lived 120 million years ago when the Sahara was covered with swamps and dense vegetation. Suchomimus had a long crocodilian skull; its jaws and teeth, like those of modern crocodiles, were adapted for grasping, rather than tearing the prey, which was mainly fish.

Another unusual Niger dinosaur is Nigersaurus (“Niger lizard”), a mid-Cretaceous, 30-foot-long sauropod with a short neck, long tail, and a unique head. Its wide, flat mouth was shaped like a vacuum-cleaner nozzle, with all the teeth at the front of its jaws. Both jaws had 50 tooth positions, each packed with nine replacement teeth so that when one tooth wore out, another immediately took its place. Paleontologists believe that Nigersaurus replaced about 100 teeth per month.

Madagascar Dinosaurs

Many strange dinosaurs also lived on what is now Madagascar. Located off Africa’s east coast in the Indian Ocean, the world’s fourth-largest island has been a separate landmass for 88 million years and provides many ancient and modern examples of isolated evolution.

One ancient example is the late-Cretaceous Rapetosaurus, a medium-sized, long-necked sauropod named for Rapeto, a mischievous giant of Malagasy folk legend. Rapetosaurus is known for the football-sized, bony deposits called osteoderms under the skin along its spine. These are thought to be survival features that stored calcium for use in times of stress or during periods of dietary deficiency to assure continued bone growth and eggshells’ development.

Madagascar’s smallest dinosaur is the two-foot-long, feathered Rahonavis (“cloud bird”), closely related to Buitreraptor and other Gondwana dromaeosaurs. Although no preserved feathers have yet been found, the arm bones of Rahonavis have small bumps called “quill knobs,” which are indicators of feathers on modern birds. Because of quill knobs and its wing-like arm shape, paleontologists believe that Rahonavis could indeed fly.

Also from Madagascar is Simosuchus (“pug-nosed crocodile”), which is not a dinosaur, but a rare, herbivorous crocodilian. It had a short, deep snout and jaws lined with leaf-shaped teeth similar to modern iguanas and adapted for eating plants. Simosuchus lived 65 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period; it was a poor swimmer that probably lived on land.

Impacts of Climate Change & Continental Drift

Dr. Joe Sertich, the curator of dinosaurs at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, studies the impacts of climate change and continental drift on Jurassic and Cretaceous dinosaurs’ evolution and crocodiles. His work often takes him to Madagascar, where he recently excavated a nearly complete skeleton of Majungasaurus (“Majunga lizard,” after the region where it was found).

This 30-foot-long, bipedal predator was one of the few dinosaurs with a direct link to cannibalism. Majungasaurus appeared in the first episode of Jurassic Fight Club, a made-for-television, paleontological documentary that focused on its cannibalistic traits.
Sertich describes his Majungasaurus excavation as “easy,” because of the softness of the host sandstone. But while soft rock facilitates the excavation of Madagascar dinosaur fossils, it also presents a problem.

“Slash-and-burn agriculture has destroyed much of Madagascar’s rain forest,” Sertich explains. “This has caused extreme soil erosion that exposes dinosaur fossils at a rate faster than we can excavate them. If these fossils are not recovered immediately, erosion destroys them in less than a year.”

Sertich is often asked why paleontologists are suddenly discovering so many southern dinosaurs.

Evolution of Global Dinosaur Discoveries

“The overall state of dinosaur paleontology today in South America, Africa, and Madagascar is similar to what it was in the United States more than a century ago,” he explains. “These rapidly developing regions are rich in dinosaur fossils. They have growing numbers of paleontologists, and many of their most remote regions are just now being geologically surveyed. Because of all these factors, the rate of dinosaur-fossil discoveries is increasing dramatically.

“These discoveries will continue into the future,” adds Sertich, “and will greatly increase our knowledge of dinosaurs and their origins relative to continental drift and evolutionary isolation. This all adds up to a very exciting time in dinosaur paleontology.”

While dinosaur fossils are being excavated in the Sahara, the hottest, driest place on Earth, they are also being found in Antarctica, the coldest and windiest place. The presence of dinosaurs in Antarctica provides further confirmation of continental drift. Eons ago, when Antarctica was part of Gondwana and located nearer to the equator, it had a warm, moist climate, dense forests, and a sizeable dinosaur population.

Antarctic Fossils

Extreme cold and remoteness make excavating dinosaur fossils on Antarctica exceedingly difficult. Fossils can be found only in the relatively few areas not covered by snow and ice. And when fossils become exposed, the extreme temperatures and the expansion and contraction associated with repetitive freezing and thawing quickly destroy them.

Nevertheless, Antarctica has already yielded the fossilized remains of both Jurassic and Cretaceous dinosaurs. Among the Cretaceous dinosaurs excavated from the sandstone of James Ross Island near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula is Antarcticopelta (“Antarctica shield”), a 20-foot-long, heavily armored ankylosaur and the first Antarctica dinosaur ever discovered. Along with heavy, spiked armor, Antarcticopelta had large, bony growths on the end of its massive tail that it could swing with great force as a defensive weapon.

Another Cretaceous dinosaur from Antarctica is Trinisaurus, a six-foot-long, beaked, herbaceous dinosaur that lived 75 million years ago. Trinisaurus is named for Trinidad “Trini” Diaz, the Argentinean geologist who discovered its bones in 2005.

Mount Kirkpatrick’s Dinosaurs

Antarctica’s Jurassic dinosaur fossils are found just below the summit of 14,856-foot-high Mount Kirkpatrick, one of the continent’s highest peaks. These Jurassic sediments, which were deposited when Antarctica was near sea level, were uplifted to their current 13,000-foot elevation 65 million years ago. Although Mount Kirkpatrick is only 400 miles from the geographic South Pole, high winds keep much of the mountain free of snow.

Among Mount Kirkpatrick’s dinosaurs is Cryolophosaurus (“cold crest lizard”), which lived 190 million years ago. About 20 feet long, it was the largest of the early Jurassic theropods. Unlike many theropods that had double crests along their skulls and necks, Cryolophosaurus had a single crest oriented forward toward the forehead, a “pompadour” look that has earned it the tongue-in-cheek name “Elvisaurus.”

Another dinosaur found high on Mount Kirkpatrick is the Jurassic herbivore Glacialisaurus (“icy lizard”), a long-necked, 25-foot-long, bipedal forerunner of the later, much larger, Cretaceous sauropods. When Antarctica was part of Gondwana about 100 million years ago, it was the land bridge over which giant South American sauropods migrated to Australia. The fossils of giant sauropods have already been found in Australia, and paleontologists expect to soon find similar fossils in Antarctica.

Joe Sertich and his colleagues are confident that they will discover many more southern dinosaurs. The study of their bones will continue to rewrite the books on how continental drift and isolated evolution impacted their development.

This story about types of dinosaurs previously appeared in Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe. Story by Steve Voynick.

The post New Types of Dinosaurs Discovered first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

Finding Dinosaurs

In the past, paleontologists would spend a great deal of time prospecting, walking along the face of the earth looking for evidence of bones. That evidence is usually a fragment of a bone or what is called a “float.” These are little pieces of bone that have migrated to the surface – or the last bone fragment as it weathers to dust. That is an indicator of dinosaur bones. The float is followed uphill to the rest of the bones.

Rarely are complete dinosaurs discovered. Then as now, scavengers roamed the earth. They would consume the bodies of dead dinosaurs and scatter bones around the ground. Dinosaurs walking around the carcass often would step on bones shattering them into pieces. Often bone beds are located near rivers and the flowing waters would carry many bones away. It is a lucky crew that finds even fifty percent of a dinosaur skeleton.

Digging Tools

Generally, bulldozers and backhoes are not used while surface prospecting because they would destroy the bones. Once bone material is found, out come the brushes. One- and two-inch paint brushes are used to brush away sand and sediment in search of more bone material. At times just below the surface overburden (dirt, rocks, and detritus that cover the bones), fairly complete bones are found.

Once a bone is discovered, be it in rock or softer sediment, a trench is dug around the bone at a minimal distance. In rock, air tools like a mini handheld jackhammer, are used. In softer sediment, the dirt and sand fall away easily with a brush, old screwdriver, or icepick. As the bone is being exposed, various stabilizing liquids are applied because of the brittleness of the bone. The liquids used vary from digger to digger and crew to crew, but generally, they are some form of glue. Often these glues and stabilizers are mixed and created onsite by the crews. As the stabilizer enters the bone, the liquid quickly evaporates leaving the hard stabilizer behind within the bone.

Jacketing Dinosaur Finds

Once the bone has been stabilized, the jacketing process begins. First tin foil or some other material is placed over the bone so that the plaster jacket can be removed easily. Plaster of Paris is brought to the field in dry form, mixed with water in buckets, and strips of burlap are cut and saturated with the Plaster of Paris. The saturated strips are placed over the tin foil-covered bone.

This process is repeated until the entire top surface and as many of the sides are covered as possible. At this point, the bone is undercut and more material is removed until the bone is just barely held in place by the remaining sediment. At times, transverse holes are dug under the bone from one side to the other and burlap is wrapped underneath to further stabilize the bone. After the plaster has dried solid, the bone is gently rocked until it is almost free and then rolled over very quickly, and hopefully, intact. Once free, the other side is also jacketed, and the bone can safely be removed from the dig site.

Removing Lots of Bones

Sometimes pods need to be jacketed. Large amounts of bones are jacketed together at times weighing hundreds, even thousands of pounds. Then heavy equipment is necessary to remove the pods to the back of flatbeds for transport. Tactics, tools, equipment, stabilizers, and glues vary from crew to crew, but the process is generally the same. The goal is to remove the fossil with the least amount of damage possible so the bones can be used for research, study, or display.

This story about digging for dinosaur bones previously appeared in Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe! Story by Joseph “Paleojoe” Kchodl.

The post Digging for Dinosaur Bones first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

Finding Deer

Evan and I met one of these handsome creatures while camping in the late fall on Mzatzal Peak. It was a chilly, foggy night and deadly still as we settled by our campfire after a day of hiking and digging at a nearby flowing snowmelt spring. In Arizona, any water is like a magnet to animals. It is the giver of life and the desert animals know every source.

While sitting by our campfire we heard rustling in the nearby brush. We knew bears were about because Evan and a fellow scout had camped in this same area before.

We flashed our lights and lit up a gorgeous, regal-looking male deer. His antlers were at least eight points. Neither of us carry a gun or shoot animals so we did not move as we watched him. He obviously sensed no danger so just turned away and strolled down toward the stream for his evening drink.

Calcite-Willemite Collecting

One of my most exciting encounters was when I was collecting fluorescent calcite-willemite in the desert near Red Rock north of Tucson. A power plant at Red Rock had installed towers to deliver power to the Ajo area. It was not unusual for power line workers to rock hound during their free time and one of them had found a three-foot-wide vein of calcite nearby. The calcite vein ran at least 100 feet and had small willemite crystals scattered through it.

He staked claims as a zinc property and later worked it during his free time. He eventually dug a shaft down over 20 feet, but the ore never improved and he finally gave up. While he did not hit a rich vein of zinc ore, the combination of red fluorescing calcite and green fluorescing willemite was popular among collectors and he invited local clubs to visit the site. The small dump he made was good for collecting and that’s where I did my collecting.

Watering Hole Visitors

To check out the deposit I met the miner late one afternoon. He had a good reason for me to come while it was still daylight. About 50 yards across from his mine was a desert seep in the limestone where animals came in to drink in the late day. The seep was about a 10-inch-wide hole in a limestone formation where water could be reached. As we sat by his mine and waited at dusk, desert animals began to appear. The more powerful desert animal came first, a mountain lion. He was leisurely as he had his fill. Next to appear was a small family of wild pigs or javelina. They were followed by an old bobcat. A trio of coyotes came next. They left and many minutes later a trio of deer slowly approached and took turns drinking and watching for danger. Finally, an animal showed up I did not recognize. The miner said it was a coatimundi. Looking like a huge cat with a bushy tail. It took a hasty drink and scurried away. Seeing such an assortment of wild desert creatures in the wild is an unforgettable treat. After that desert animal show, I collected some nice calcite-willemite.

A Mountain Lion Encounter

Bill Panczner and I collected at the Weldon mine on a local Reservation. It produces nice dog tooth calcite on large plates and galena with cerussite and barite. To collect underground you follow a long tunnel then take a side tunnel to the calcite deposit. As we walked into the mine it was evident some animal had been in there.

We spent the day collecting, then packed up to leave. At the exit, we could hear an animal making noise and stirring in the brush outside but this is cow country so we were not concerned. However, as we listened, it was obvious the animal was an unhappy mountain lion that we were in his home. We could not see him but heard his distinctive throaty snarling. We hightailed it down the mountain slope as fast as we could. I have not collected in that mine since!

Spiders! Oh My!

On one of our trips to Mexico, we visited the mine that produced wonderful Iceland spar calcite during World War II. We camped at the foot of the mountain and sitting around the campfire I heard Bill say, “Well! Well! What are you doing here?” He was looking down at his foot and we looked too. Sitting on Bill’s boot was the biggest furry tarantula I’ve ever seen. It was huge, motionless, just sitting there. Bill knew how to handle them so he reached down and with two fingers picked up the hairy thing and carried it off into the darkness. He put it down and sent it on its way. Why we slept on the ground that night makes no sense now.

Owls at the Rowley Mine

Bill Panczner and I often collected wulfenite underground at the Rowley mine where it occurred in quantity. At day’s end instead of carrying our tools and specimens up the steep incline exit, we took advantage of a vertical shaft at the end of the tunnel. I’d go to the surface and lower a rope. He’d tie off the flats and I’d haul away. One day I did not realize a great-horned owl had taken up residence in that shaft. As I hauled up the boxes that huge bird with what seemed like a fifty-foot wing span suddenly burst forth and zoomed just over my head. He sure scared me but I did not drop the precious cargo.

A Bobcat Home

The most common creatures to watch for in the desert are scorpions. They live under rocks so I always wore leather gloves and flipped rocks over and looked before picking them up.

I live out of town surrounded by horse ranches so we do get uninvited visitors now and then. The coyotes sing to us on some nights.

One morning we had a pleasant surprise when we had a visitor to our front atrium wander in from the desert. Lots of lizards and other visitors were always there. We were thrilled one day when a gorgeous young bobcat arrived and took up residence in the atrium. He stayed for two weeks until he ran out of lizards and small rodents from the ranch next door. He had beautifully patterned fur and would sit on our fountain wall like a young prince. It was midsummer with daytime temps around 110 and he had found a home.

When you visit Arizona to collect, just remember you are an intruder in the desert. The wildlife was here first. Mineral collecting is wonderful here but watch for the desert denizens. Just admire them for their ability to survive in a challenging environment.

This story about desert animals previously appeared in Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe! Story by Bob Jones.

The post Rock Collecting in Arizona first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

A Learning Curve

According to Frank, the lessons were tough from the start.

“When we started, we knew absolutely nothing about rocks,” he recalls. “All we knew was that there were valuable gems all over the world to be found and people would buy them.”

Their learning curve began in April 2020 when the couple visited a pay-to-dig mining spot for the first time. The pair spent two months mining quartz crystals at Ron Coleman Mining in Arkansas and fell in love with the pursuit.

“We sold all of our belongings in four days and hit the road to become full-time YouTubers and gem miners,” he recalls. “All we had was a tent, the money we made from selling our belongings, two dogs, two months’ worth of crystals that we planned on selling, and a newfound passion for mining – we didn’t have a part-time job or a plan B.”

With scant options, the pair learned fast about how to recognize what gems, minerals and fossils they wanted to mine, where to find them and how to make sure their digs were legal.

“The more rare and valuable, the better,” says Frank.

Pay-to-Dig Sites

Mostly they mine pay-to-dig, also known as fee mining sites, where people like the Stallings can pay a fee – as much as $190 per person per day –to dig, pan for gold, wash for gems and split rocks to find fossils. These sites are scattered all over the country and their locations can be found online. Successful miners can legally keep whatever they find and sell it.

“The sites dictate what we are collecting, and digging at pay-to-dig sites allows us to legally sell what we find, ” Frank says.

Reservations are preferred at pay-to-dig sites and check-in at the mining office is a must, he advises.

Public & Private Land

On public lands, which are collectively owned by people in the U.S. and managed by government agencies such as the National Park System, explorers may legally prospect, but may only collect material if the land is unclaimed or is a designated rockhound area. If the area is designated a rockhound area, prospectors may collect what they find, but are not allowed to sell it.

“If it is public land, we use internet resources to check if the land has active mineral claims to respect the claim boundaries,” Stallings explains. If it is a designated rockhound area, we read the rules (that must be followed) online.

By contrast, private lands are owned by individuals, businesses, or some other non-governmental organization, and require the permission of the landowner or claim holder. Those who want to prospect there must obtain permission from the land or claim owner.

Know Before You Go!

Long before that ever happens, the Stallings research potential prospective dig-sites online and consult claim maps that pinpoint the boundaries of privately-held land or claimed land to avoid stealing any resources that may be buried in the earth.

“If it is a claimed area, we stay off the claim perimeters to avoid claim-jumping, also known as stealing,” Stallings explains. “If it is private land, (a person) could do research to contact the land owner, but we personally just stay off private land.”

Fabulous Finds

Since they began prospecting, the Stallings have mined museum-quality gems from several locations including honey calcite crystals in Okeechobee, Fla, $15,000 worth of Herkimer diamonds in Herkimer, NY, wulfenite crystals from the Red Cloud Mine in Yuma, Ariz., solid turquoise nuggets in Tonopah, Nev., and blue-green Smithsonite in Magdalena, NM. They’ve also discovered an entire agatized petrified tree in Holbrook, Ariz.

“Nearly every location we visit, we find gems worth $500 or more,” says Frank.

As a result, Frank, 29, and 24-year-old Kyndall Stallings have built a tidy business from their explorations.

They clean, prep, and ship the treasures they find from their bus while they are on the road. Sales come from the weekly gem shows they host on one of their Facebook sites, and through online stores, they maintain on eBay. Meanwhile, they cultivate their business by sharing on-the-spot videos of their excavations on their YouTube channel and on one of their sites on Facebook. They also share their adventures on their website thatcampingcouple.com.

Making a Living

“Our main income source is our gem sales,” Frank says. “About 10 percent of our income comes from social media, and the rest is from selling our hand-collected gems.”

Still, the way the couple has chosen to make their living is not easy, Frank points out.

“When we started, we barely made any money for an entire year – we went broke several times and had times where we couldn’t afford gas or important bills,” he recalls. “Even now that we make more money, we still put every penny we make back into mining gems and traveling to the next collecting site to grow our business.”

These days, their work still demands long hours all day every day involving not just mining, but preparing their finds for sale, marketing them, and filming and editing videos for their social media and website outlets.

On The Road Realities

Meanwhile, recent economics have also added new challenges.

“To be successful, we have to find noteworthy pieces at each location to accommodate rising gas prices and travel expenses, as well as entertaining our social media following,” he says.

Then, of course, there are the hours of windshield time, and forfeit of even the most simple creature comforts.

“We sacrifice certain comforts, like being far from family and friends, and not being able to shower on a daily basis,” Frank admits.

Still, there is an upside too, he says, including being self-employed and trading the outdoors for a cubicle in some office building.

“Also we get to work together as a married couple, travel, see the country, and find extraordinary, beautiful gems,” Frank says. “Most importantly, we get to really live and experience what life has to offer – in the end, it’s worth it.”

This story about how to rockhound from an RV appeared in Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe. Story by Pat Raia.

The post How to Rockhound from an RV first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

I was visiting family in Ohio, and they told me of a crystal cave up North located at a winery. The crystal cave is on Put-In-Bay Island in Lake Erie, where Paul Bunyan could have easily skipped a rock across the water border into Canada. A ferryboat over to the island takes vehicular traffic as well as walk-ons, and if you are going for the day, I highly recommend walking. Parking lots on the mainland and golf carts available for rent on the island make this an easy option.

History of the Crystal Cave

The crystal cave is at the Heineman’s Winery. Fortunately, it turns out that the wine-sipping part of the program comes after the cave and winery tours. In 1897, the winery owners were digging a well and broke through the top of a cave lined entirely with whiteish-blue crystals. They thought they had struck it rich, but they found strontium sulfate crystals, also known as celestite. They mined some of the cave’s interior to sell the material as an ingredient in fireworks but soon realized that the cave’s greatest value was a tourist attraction. During Prohibition, tours of the cave helped prevent the winery from going out of business.

The winery’s origins date to 1888 with founder German immigrant Gustav Heineman. The winery has been in the family since. They produce over 20 varieties of red, white, and dessert wines from local grapes. During our visit, upon entering the winery, we signed up for the next cave and winery tour, and the cost of $8 included the cave tour, winery tour, and a glass of wine or grape juice in the tasting room afterward.

Touring the Crystal Cave

As we assembled for the tour, 20 of us lined up to walk down a long flight of stairs into the cave, which is 40 feet below ground. Our group just filled the main chamber, and all were careful not to touch the sides. The delicate mineral growths in the cave cannot take being rubbed by endless groups of tourists.

While we made our way through the cave, I found myself on the edge of the main group in a side tunnel that circles back to the base of the stairs. I walked through this tunnel to get behind the group, and as they exited through the tunnel, I was able to take pictures that would show the cave and not a tight pack of 20 tourists.

The winery owners call the cave the largest Celestine geode in the world, and tours are offered from May through September. This tour is a wonderful experience for anyone who is able to walk downstairs and through a crystal-lined cave. After the cave tour, we toured through the winery, learned about the process and then went to the tasting room. I enjoyed their wine and went home with a bottle of their dessert ice wine. It is made from grapes picked after the winter frosts have set in, making a very sweet sipping wine.

Heading to Kelleys Island

We left Put-In-Bay, made the ferry crossing back to the mainland, and headed to the next ferry. This ferry took us to Kelleys Island, another Lake Erie Island barely south of the Canadian border. The goal of this excursion was to spend a couple of nights camping at Kelleys Island State Park. We had no idea we would end up having such a great time rockhounding throughout this island.

Exploring Glacial Grooves

We had read about the Pleistocene glacial grooves at the state park, the largest in the world, so we walked from our campsite to the closest of the grooves that still exist. Several large limestone quarries exist on the island, and some of the glacial grooves were destroyed by limestone mining. The groove at the park was only partially visible until the 1970s when it was excavated, fenced off from foot traffic, and an informative trail built to encircle it. This trail includes an area accessible to wheelchairs. The information posted at the groove tells how the glaciers slowly moving over the landscape ground the grooves into the limestone.

As I was looking at the surface of the groove, it looked to me to have been formed by flowing liquids, not rocks embedded in the bottom of a glacier grinding away at the limestone. Why was it such a deep groove? Why were the grooves flowing into each other instead of parallel grinding marks that I have seen from other glaciers? However, that is what the interpretive signs said, so I didn’t argue with the signs.

Alternative Glacial Grooves Theories

Later, when I met with the State Park Manager, Chris Ashley, he told me of another proposed theory, and it makes much more sense to me. Streams of high-pressure water have been observed shooting out of the base of glaciers. The weight of the glacier can create water that becomes liquid at temperatures lower than freezing. When this trapped water escapes the glacier, it shoots out at great speed, carrying with it the debris picked up by the glacier. I liken it to the water jet cutters used by steel and stone cutters, only loaded with rocks and sand for extra scouring power.

When looking at the groove’s interior, the water flow patterns fit this glacial groove-making theory better than the old grinding concept. I hope that any new interpretive signs will add this new theory.

Another discovery we made is that the limestone in this location is loaded with fossils from the Devonian Sea. As we walked around the groove trail, the rocks we walked on were pockmarked with coral, snails and other ocean fossils. Back at the park office, we were informed that any fossils that are loose are legal to keep. Leave your rock pick in your car, though, because it is not legal to mine fossils from the rocks, but you won’t mind because there are plenty of loose rocks containing fossils to pick up.

Crystals, Wine, and Fossils, Too

Fossils here include corals, brachiopods, gastropods, pelecypods, cephalopods, crinoids, and stomato-poroids, 18 different types of marine fossils. I wanted to find one of the nautilus-type shell fossils, so we went over to the large quarry on the island’s southern side. I had my nautilus shell within half an hour. The fossil I found was a little one, three inches in diameter, but nautilus fossils a foot in diameter have been found on the island.

The Park Manager also showed me a less common stone from Kelleys Island, which is tillite. This type of glacial erratic rock came down from a Gondwanan deposit north of Lake Huron. It is an approximately 2.5 billion-year-old stone formed when granite was broken up and later encased in a glacial till that formed into rock. I tried to find one but was unable.

An Art Gallery Visit

One last stop on our tour of Kelleys Island was the art gallery of Charles Herndon at 110 Laylin Lane. For over 30 years, Herndon was an art professor at Columbus College of Art and Design, and his stone sculpture gallery is outdoors and indoors. The gallery also features paintings and photographs, and much of his stone has come from Kelleys Island. A stone carver myself, I greatly admired his skill and sense of design with rock. The gallery is open to the public, and you shouldn’t miss it.

This story about exploring the crystal cave in Ohio appeared in the April 2021 issue of Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe! Story by Bruce McKay.

The post Exploring the Crystal Cave in Ohio first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

In over a century of searching, riches are still found in the “Treasure State” of Montana. Initially earning this moniker for the gold, silver and copper finds, sapphires have solidly earned their place among the bounty of the State.

During the Montana gold rush in Southwestern Montana in the early 1860s, sapphires appeared as colorful distractions in the miners’ pans and sluice boxes. The colorful bits of sand and gravel were of little value. While gold was one of the main forces, followed by silver and copper, behind the creation of Montana as a territory and a state, if the miners knew what they had at the time, they wouldn’t have been as quick to toss them aside.

“They were after the gold,” says Cass Thompson, owner and operator of the Spokane Bar Sapphire Mine, roughly 30 miles northeast of Helena. Thompson’s family has mined this area for sapphires over the past 60 years.

How Montana Sapphires Were Created

Created as igneous rocks slowly cooled, sapphires are made of the mineral corundum, chemically known as aluminum oxide. With a Mohs rating of nine, sapphires are the hardest natural substances following the diamond.

Reaching the level of the sapphire-laden material can be a challenge. Bound in a conglomerate of feldspar and bentonite clay, sapphires tend to settle well below layers of topsoil, overburden, and evidence of volcanic activity in the gravel bars. In some parts of the Eldorado Bar along the upper Missouri River deposit, there are layers 100 feet below the surface making it more difficult to reach. But because of the sapphires’ high specific gravity of four (although much less than gold’s 19.3) these areas were often intermingled with placer deposits, which is why they were intertwined with the search for gold.

The Brilliance of Chemistry

“We have quite a variety of sapphires in Montana, but the mainstay is the Yogo,” said Glenn McCaffery, longtime gem enthusiast in Great Falls, Montana, and registered jeweler with the American Gem Society.

“The Yogo is untreated and of exceptional quality. There are very few flaws,” he explained. While mining for gold in 1895 along Yogo Creek in the Little Belt Mountains east of Great Falls, prospector Jake Hoover collected the brilliant blue stones instead of discarding them, and sent them to Tiffany & Co. in New York City for an assessment. It turns out these excellent quality gemstones earned Hoover and his partners $3750, over $3000 more than what they’d made finding gold.

While the beautiful “cornflower blue” of the Yogo is highly desirable, natural sapphire colors range from lighter blues, lavenders, pinks, greens, oranges and yellows. Combinations of titanium, iron, small amounts of chromium, and nickel result in this wide array of hues. The signature coloration of the Yogo is a result of titanium and iron, with the more iron involved, the deeper the blue. Rubies, which are also corundum and sometimes found in these areas, are brilliant red because of the presence of a higher concentration of chromium.

“In the Missouri River Deposit where we mine, we get the full spectrum of colors, but the most prominent is the blue/green,” said Thompson. He also notes they find a wide range of sizes.

More Valuable than Gold

“We’ve seen some really nice gem-quality sapphires up to a 26 facet grade,” said Thompson.

When searching for sapphires, sharp eyes are needed to pick out the tiny gems that are mere millimeters across, but larger stones closer to 10 carats are not uncommon. “The largest was found by my grandfather. He found a 50-carat stone. I’m still in the high 20s,” he said. To put it in perspective, Thompson said a 50-carat sapphire is roughly one and a half inches long and as big around as a man’s thumb.

The popularity and price of sapphires, especially since they are September’s birthstone, today would make early prospectors swoon. Thompson said some of the stones found on their place were valued between $1000 to $10,000 per carat. As an example, Thompson said a 24-carat sapphire cut to an 8 to 9-carat finish is easily worth $10,000 or more. “The value (of sapphires) is definitely more than gold,” he said.

Where Montana Sapphires are Found

Besides Yogo Gulch between Great Falls and Lewistown, which is no longer open to the public, there are many sapphire-rich areas throughout Central and Southwestern Montana, all of which coordinate with historic gold speculation. The gravel bars running along the upper Missouri River between Canyon Ferry Reservoir and into Hauser Lake, including the Eldorado and Spokane Bars, are some of the earliest finds and are still rich in sapphires. But after the construction of the dam in the early 1900s to create Hauser Lake, several of the gravel bars were submerged deep below the surface. It’s interesting to consider what sapphires are strewn along these now underwater former gold stakes when prospectors tossed the pretty stones aside.

More to the southwest, the Dry Cottonwood Creek (discovered in 1889) near Deer Lodge, as well as Rock Creek closer to Philipsburg, which was also found in the late 1800s, became popular sapphire mining areas. While the high-quality gems of Yogo Creek earned impressive amounts, many of the other sapphires initially found industrial uses, primarily in watchmaking, as well as being used in bombsights for torpedos and as the abrasive material on sanding wheels until the mid-1940s. After this time period, industrial operations shifted to synthetic sapphires to suit their needs. Since then, treasure hunters still gravitate toward several of these historic mining locations.

Want to Try your Hand at Finding your Own Montana Sapphires? Touch base with these knowledgeable operations for your treasure hunt. Spokane Bar Sapphire Mine Not far from the state capital of Helena, the Spokane Bar Sapphire Mine offers several digging options. Gem Mountain Sapphire Mine Located in Philipsburg, Gem Mountain offers material at a downtown shop or at the mine roughly 22 miles out of town. Montana Gems of Philipsburg Whether searching gravel on-site or having it shipped to your own, Montana Gems offers materials from Rock Creek and the Eldorado Bar areas. Sapphire Gallery Also in Philipsburg, the Sapphire Gallery offers materials from the Rock Creek deposit in the aptly named Sapphire Mountains.

Commercial Mining

Montana is the only state where sapphires are commercially mined, which includes providing opportunities for the public to try their hand picking through gravel to find treasure. Thompson said the basic premise of sapphire mining hasn’t changed very much over the past century. “Since we’ve been doing it, it’s pretty much the same. The equipment just gets bigger,” he says. Front-end loaders and excavators are the front line in removing the materials from the mining location before further processing.

For operations that sell gravel for individuals and families, it’s not a matter of simply dumping dirt and gravel into a bucket. Once extracted, the material goes through a trommel, a rotating drum that sorts out the larger rocks, followed by multiple screening and washing processes to refine the material to a manageable size. In the end, what’s left is a bucket of seemingly innocuous gravel and clay that is rich with sapphires, along with possibly topaz, hematite, garnets, fossils and even gold.

Digging Montana Sapphires

Is it legal to collect rocks, including Montana sapphires? Many commercial mines are open to the public throughout the state with the option of visiting the mining area and searching through the gravel outdoors in a beautiful setting. Some allow visitors to gather material to gain a better understanding of the process. Other places have storefront facilities where there is typically an option to purchase a bucket to sort through at the shop or buy materials to take home. Most mines can even ship bags of gravel.

The actual sorting process is fairly simple. Customers are given a shaker box, which is a screened, roughly three-inch tall container that allows the water to flow through the materials. It is filled about halfway with gravel, then washed in a large tub or trough.

Washing is somewhat of a zen moment. The rhythmic motion of gently working the shaker box in the water — submerge, tilt, flatten, turn, repeat — is surprisingly relaxing. With these movements in the water, the gravel rises, and because the sapphires are heavier, they sink below the layer. Washing also filters out the fine clay to make the gems more visible. After a few passes, it’s time to flip the box on the table so the sapphires are closer to the top.

It doesn’t take long to train your eye to see the pastel colors and different shapes, which are sometimes more rounded or potentially crystalline depending on the mine location. Tweezers are the tool of choice to pluck them from the gravel. Because there can be several different minerals among the sapphire material, if there is any question, save the stones and ask someone at the mine. With generations of experience, they’re happy to explain your find and answer questions.

As with many outdoor activities in Montana, operating seasons are dictated by the weather. Some of the indoor shops offer gravel washing throughout the year, but for those who want to hunt at the mine sites, it’s best to wait until the weather moderates. Thompson said that they’ll often continue mining into December, which can be a brutal month. If Mother Nature cooperates, they welcome visitors in March or April.

Treasure Hunting

Steeped in a long tradition of treasure hunting, Montana sapphires are a unique find in this extraordinarily beautiful landscape.

Picking through pay dirt, it’s easy to understand the allure of gold, and later these colorful gems, and why this quest never fails to spark the heart and imagination of those that appreciate the challenge.

This story about Montana sapphires previously appeared in Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe! Story by Amy Grisak.

The post Montana Sapphires 101 first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.