Old Rock Day – January 7

This day is set aside (though no one knows how long it has been observed or when it was first celebrated), to consider how old the Earth is and how it has shaped our lives. It’s also a shout-out to some of the earliest geologists like the Theophrathes, Pliny the Elder, Ulisse Aldovandi, James Hutton and William Smith.

National Jewel Day – March 13

This special day is set aside to appreciate precious stones and jewelry. From the earliest examples of stone, bone, and shell jewelry, to the most lavish and intricate designs of today, National Jewel Day is meant to recognize them all. Those who choose to participate are encouraged to wear their most spectacular bejeweled pieces and take the occasion to gift jewelry to those important people in their life.

Geologists Day – April 7

This day is dedicated to those folks who make it their life’s work to explore, research and disseminate their knowledge of rocks and Earth’s history. It is also the time to appreciate all of those things in our lives that we have or know because of geologists. This includes such daily used items as toothpaste and even cell phones. Younger folks contemplating a career in geology can take this opportunity to discuss with practitioners in the field, what the job is actually like.

Earth Day – April 22

You can’t get any “Earthier” than rocks, gems and minerals. This is a day for rockhounds to explore and to appreciate Earth’s treasures.

Nickel Day – May 16

Devoted to the mined element, nickel, this day was created to acknowledge this important metal. Nickel has been used by humans for at least 2,000 years. By the middle of the 19th century, it was ubiquitous in American coinage as well as that of other European nations.

Dinosaur Days – May 15 & June 1

Dinosaurs lived millions of years ago, but they’re top of mind today. So much is still unknown about these fascinating creatures. Celebrate what we know and anticipate what we don’t on this fun day for young and old alike.

National Caves & Karst Day – June 6

This day is dedicated to the majesty and importance of these amazing rock formations. Most people know what caves are, but few are familiar with “karst” landscapes. A karst landscape is characterized by rocky hills, aquifers, springs, sinkholes and caves. Hundreds of different minerals and gems are found in caves, and 40 percent of drinking water in the U.S. comes from karst aquifers.

World Oceans Day – June 8

Beach finds from shells to rocks, minerals and sea glass are a favorite. Celebrate the oceans that bring us this bounty.

International Drop a Rock Day – July 3

This a day for having a bit of fun while inspiring kindness toward others. Across the world, individuals, families, and groups of all types get creative and paint rocks with pictures, themed messages, or even advertising and hide them. Anyone can try to find them. When they are found, the lucky holder of that rock can keep it, hide it again, or if it is part of a local promotion, contact the sponsoring group. This highly popular activity is not restricted to International Drop a Rock Day; many groups do this throughout the year and hold rock-painting parties before going out and hiding them.

International Rock Day – July 13

Sometimes referred to as World Rock Day, this day is intended to celebrate and to contemplate the importance of rocks to humankind. It is to honor the rock as one of the most fundamental aspects of human survival. If there is one day per year to give rocks their due, this is it!

National Pet Rock Day – September 1

This tongue-in-cheek holiday is dedicated to the 1975 marketing scheme that led to the sale of over one million pet rocks. On this day, many people “adopt” a pet rock at functions planned to celebrate this phenomenon.

Collect Rocks Day – September 16

Held since 2015, Collect Rocks Day celebrates all of the diverse types of rocks and all of the different places they can be collected, no matter where in the world you live. It is a celebration of Earth and geology for everyone.

National Fossil Day – October 16

As the name implies, this day is reserved for appreciating and exploring fossils. Of the approximately 250,000 different fossilized species that have been identified, it is estimated there are millions more to be found. Many groups organize fossil hunts and expeditions on this day in early fall. Be sure to find one near you.

This story about rockhound holidays appeared in Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe. Original story by Chris Bond. Updated yearly to reflect current dates and holidays. 

The post 2024 Rockhound Holidays first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

I did not take to this remark kindly and had to bite my tongue not to make a caustic comment in return. However, as I drove away I remembered that she had several beautiful emeralds she couldn’t bear to part with, along with a stunning piece of quartz that she recently bought from one of her customers. Ha, I thought, she is nothing but a rockhound herself. She just has more specialized knowledge of the minerals in her area.

Rockhounds come in all shapes, sizes, occupations, and ages. I recently left Arizona and turned over the leavings of the rockpile in my backyard to the neighborhood children. Within hours, it disappeared – the baby boom of five new rock piles and five new rockhounds.

Small Rocks

Some rockhounds just collect micro-mounts. They usually give one the feeling that they are the crème de la crème of rockhounds. I have spent many boring hours looking through a magnifying glass at the minute grains in their collections.

They always have several of these glasses around and at least one microscope. I’ve noticed they lower their voices at what they have paid for these tiny bits of rock if their spouse is not a collector. Rockhounds do get sneaky if only one partner collects. I once moved 1,500 pounds of rock across the country in cartons marked “books” so that my husband wouldn’t realize just why the moving company was charging us so much.

Precious Metals

I have been friends with many a gold prospector that maintains all he wants to do is “strike it rich.” But, when they do find a nugget of considerable size, where is it?

I’ll tell you! It’s usually in their home or pocket so they can show it to others. They are just rockhounds of precious metals.

Latent Rockhounds

I have friends who own a commercial quartz crystal mine in Arkansas. Do you think they can part with their best pieces? Of course not. Their home is lined with shelves of beautiful specimens, along with their driveway, porch patio and even their kitchen window. They have all the symptoms of dyed-in-the-wool rockhounds.

You don’t need to carry the label rockhound to be one. I’ve met people who would scoff if I called them that. The stray rock I saw in their yard or home was just something they picked up because it was pretty or interesting looking. I know one person who has a ping-pong table filled with rocks picked up over the years because they were interesting. In my estimation, all of the above are latent rockhounds.

Artifacts & Precious Gems

If you have ever met a collector of Native American artifacts, have you noticed that they can tell you just what kind of minerals their arrowheads are made of — quartz, chert, granite, obsidian, etc. Rockhounds all!

And, I can’t help but think that precious gem collectors and jewelers are in it for more than just monetary reasons. The few I know can give me a rundown on each gem, virtue by virtue, carat by carat, sheen by shine. They are just the elitists in the rockhound field. I might add that I would love to graduate into this type of collector myself.

Fossil Hunters

Have I mentioned fossil hunters? Ordinary rocks are not for them, their collection has to tell a story of inland seas and ancient times. They collect anything from petrified foraminifers to agate dinosaur droppings. I must admit that most of us rockhounds have some fossils in our collections, but we would be hard-pressed to tell you just what we had and what age it came from. We usually take our finds to knowledgeable members of our group for identification. I once met a rockhound I called an “old fossil” but that had nothing to do with collecting. Almost every group has one of them present!

Budding Rockhounds

Rockhounding can be catching and we “rockers” usually infect the people around us. My husband, who at one time wouldn’t get out of his chair to look at a meteor if it fell from the skies in front of him, has changed his attitude over the years. I once made him go gold panning with me and he sat on the banks of a small stream and watched me work for several hours.

I dug deep holes, moved large boulders, carried tons of dirt in pails and fell into both the creek and a patch of poison ivy. His only comment was, “If I made you work this hard at home, you would divorce me!” Cleaning out the car after I arrived home, I found this useless piece of granite with mica in it. “Where did this come from?” I asked. “Well,” he replied, turning a little red, “I found it in the stream and thought it was pretty.” I call this a budding of a blooming rockhound.

Another little bud is my daughter. She is vehement in declaring that she is no rockhound. Last week I talked her into going with me on a trip to a nearby quarry. She agreed as long as I didn’t expect her to look for anything and she reinforced this statement by putting a lawn chair, suntan lotion and a book in the truck with us. She also made several nasty comments about crazy people who spend the day breaking apart boulders and calling it fun.

When we got to the quarry she took one look at the beautifully fractured garnets impregnated in the granite schist, grabbed my extra sledgehammer and went to work. Hours later, she had the truck filled with huge rocks, saying that she collected more than she needed because she wanted her brothers to have some of them for their homes. Now, all of my children have 30 to 40-pound doorstops and enough rocks to start a rock garden. I hate to think of what we would have brought back if she had been a “rockhound.”

Being Aware

One nice thing about rockhounding is that it heightens your awareness of nature and the riches of this planet earth. Rockhounds also develop an ability I call “vision sharpening.” I now notice everything on the ground around me. Indoors, this talent has led to minutes more play at the one-armed bandits in Las Vegas as I am now adept at finding coins on the casino floors. Outdoors, I not only find lots of interesting rocks, but I also have collected pop can rings, petrified bubble gum, lost keys and a smattering of dried rabbit and burro droppings. Once, I found what I thought was a fantastic fossil and only after picking it up, did I realize that it was a decomposing fish that still needed a few thousand years to cure. I might add that no one in the group came near me for the rest of the day. I smelled as ripe as the fish after this encounter!

Rockhounds are dreamers. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t pursue our hobby to the extent that most of us do. My favorite dream is where the curator of the Smithsonian is begging me on bended knee to donate the magnificent specimen that I just found to the museum. I already know my answer, “Golly, I would like to, but it looks so good on my fireplace mantel that I can’t give it up.” This answer also proves that some of us have rocks in our heads.

The First Rockhounds

The woman I met at the emerald mine just doesn’t realize that a person needn’t be a geologist, or specialist, to enjoy rockhounding. You can be a housewife, doctor, lawyer, or truck driver — whatever. You can rockhound every weekend or just collect whenever you see a rock that catches your eye. You can join a club or go it alone. As far as I am concerned, civilization started when a rockhound first picked up a stone and decided that it might make a good tool. One of man’s greatest accomplishments included a rockhound field trip. We call that resultant collection “moon rocks.” In conclusion, I think that rockhounding is born and bred into all of us, it remains passive in some, but the rest of us can be seen trekking through fields and streams hauling out “specimens” for our collections.

This story about what is a rockhound appeared in Rock & Gem magazine. Click here to subscribe. Story by Marilyn Mchugh Meier.

The post What is a Rockhound? 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.

Tumble-polished stones are an honored, time-tested stock-in-trade at the kids’ booths of local gem club shows all around the world. Kids love them! In fact, I still have the small tumble-polished Oregon beach agate I received at the very first gem show I ever attended as a little kid nearly 60 years ago. For many years, I carried the shiny orange treasure in my pocket. Every gem and mineral society ought to have at least one member (preferably more) designated to craft and provide a supply of such translucent little gems. Then, as that supply builds up, get creative in what to do with the inventory!

If you are in a large active society, tumbling rough is fairly easy to come by. For instance, in my own Ventura Gem & Mineral Society (VGMS), our workshop stewards, lapidary artists, and one local dealer are always happy to pass along discarded bits from their slabbing, cabbing, and sphere making efforts. We also have a considerable club rock pile to source, where I pick out chunks of jasper and agate that show good color and/or promising hints of interesting pattern. These get broken into tumbling sized bits on a block of concrete on my backyard patio with a heavy crack hammer.

A word of advice: Wear thick leather gloves and eye protection to guard against sharp shards that can fly like shrapnel!

Ever Watchful for Stones

Finally, during club field trips or walks along the beach, I’m always on the lookout for little stones with tumbling potential and try to come home with at least a small batch to add to my stockpile. With that stockpile now approaching something like a half dozen five-gallon buckets on that backyard patio, I’m never at a loss for tumbling rough. In fact, with so much on hand, I’ll often fill a couple of gallon size Ziploc bags with rough stones to sell as “Bag o’ Rocks” at our various club silent auctions to raise money for the society while encouraging others to join in the tumbling fun.

While I’ve found tumbling rough to be relatively easy to come by, tumbling those rough stones requires a long-term committed investment in money and time.

First, the time aspect. Getting a mirror-like polish out of a dull rough stone does not happen overnight. If you follow the standard procedure with a rotary tumbler, it can take a month to produce finished results. The length of time is because you’ll patiently grind your way through the necessary rough, medium, fine, and polish stages (although with a well-rounded beach agate, you may be able to skip the rough grind). At any one time, I always have at least three rotary tumblers spinning in my garage. While vibratory tumblers can speed the process (and I’ve recently purchased one for experimenting), even then, there’s still a considerable investment of time.

Next is the investment of money. Sure, you can get a small basic tumbler for as little as $50, but as we all know, you get what you pay for. Keep in mind that these machines will be running 24 hours a day seven days a week for a month at a time just to finish a single load. Virtually everyone who has purchased an inexpensive (i.e., “cheap”) machine has complained to me that it has broken down with a burnt-out motor or a snapped belt after just a single load or two. Commercial grade machines can be had for as much as $700 to $800 or more.
I, myself, prefer the Goldilocks price range, that is, neither too low nor too high, but just right!

Trusting the Tried and True Equipment

After a couple tries with other models, I have always gone for the Lortone QT6 model, which currently retails for around $200. There are other equally good manufacturers and models out there, but this one has proven to be a truly reliable workhorse for me for going on twenty-five years now.

Editor’s Note: You can find various Lortone and other brands of tumblers (including those shown below) at the Kingsley North website >>>

Beyond the initial investment in a machine, you then have to feed the machine with a steady diet of grit in three grades—rough, medium, and fine—followed by a dose of expensive polish. And don’t stop to think about what running a tumbling device nonstop does to your electric bill! My wife has also gently suggested we might want to consider moving the noisy tumblers out of the garage and to a place that’s not right next to the bedroom, but I find the white noise of a tumbler tumbling in the dark of night strangely soothing to the soul.

Over the years, I have learned to maximize the results from this investment of time and money. Purists within the tumbling community will often work with batches of a single type of stone (preferably from the same locality, even), but I’m not that pure. Instead, I’ll usually work with mixed batches of jaspers, agates, and other stones so long as they all share the same relative hardness on the Mohs scale. (Most of the stones I work with for tumbling fall within the range of Mohs 6 to Mohs 7.) At the end of the process, I then have a nice variety of stones to use for different purposes.

Once that month-long grinding and polishing process is over, I start dividing finished stones into four piles graded by size and quality, but mostly by size. If you are truly earnest, you might even construct sifting screens with two or three different sizes of wire mesh to speed the grading process. But I’m not that anal. Yet.

Assessing Stone Materials

Pile One holds larger, better quality stones. These include banded agate, agates with inclusions, picture jasper, tiger eye, and any stones with exciting, eye-catching patterns

as seen, for example, in poppy jasper. Other stones placed in Pile One include those with vibrant colors, such as purple amethyst, green aventurine, hot-pink rhodonite and rose quartz, yellow and orange Oregon beach agates, blue lapis or sodalite, etc.

All of the Pile One specimens get “First Class” treatment. I gussy them up by putting them into 2X2- or 2X3-inch baggies along with a label printed on cardstock to identify what they are and, if known, their locality of origin. I’m a big believer that we should do everything possible to instill in kids the importance of provenance in the gem and mineral collecting hobby.

We also use these nicer, packaged stones as spinning wheel prizes at our annual VGMS gem show, where kids pay just a buck a spin for a rocky reward. These packages are a real bargain in that I’ve seen similar stones sold in rock shops and museum gift shops for anywhere from three to ten dollars. We have also used these stones in other ways. For instance, as gifts for teachers or as freebies for kids who complete a “Scavenger Hunt” questionnaire evaluating different aspects of our gem show.

If you have talented wire wrappers in your society, you might enlist them to use some of these primo stones for crafting wire-wrapped pendant necklaces to sell in your kids’ booth. Or perhaps they might use a little supply to host lessons for kids on wire wrapping and on making quick-and-easy pendants with glue-on bell caps. This activity could take place right in the show kids’ booth, or you might make it an event to do with the kids in your society on a workshop day if you run an active Pebble Pups and Juniors program. Tumbling Tip: A good time of year to hold such a workshop is around Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, and ahead of the holiday season.

Making the Most of Everything

Pile Two holds larger stones that are still shiny and pretty but more on the duller side of the color spectrum. For instance, instead of a vivid red, you may have rust-red jaspers. Instead of a hot-pink rhodonite, you may have a pale pink chalcedony agate. Pile Two also holds clear or milky-white agates or brown and yellow jaspers.

Usually, the stones in this pile have little or no appealing pattern. Such stones get “Economy Class” treatment. While some of the better ones might end up in 2X2- or 2X3-inch baggies with labels to identify what they are and where they came from, most are destined for use as grab bag filler to augment the higher quality stones and fossils that we typically include in our grab bags.

Pile Three consists of high-quality stones that are pretty and colorful and may have beautiful bands or other nice patterns but are too small to serve as individual prizes or even as grab bag filler. With such smaller stones, there is strength in numbers! These get “Business Class” treatment, so long as they team up.

I take anywhere from three to six individual specimens from this pile and glue them onto small cards that I’ve developed with grids containing identifying info to craft “Gemstone Collections.” These are finished off by inserting the cards into 3X4-inch baggies. These make nice spinning wheel prizes. They can also serve as promotional items for your local society if you print necessary information about the society and prominently display its web address on the back of the card.

Treasure Chest Discoveries

As another use for such smaller but colorful stones, we stock a “Treasure Chest” that we put out front-and-center on the welcome booth near the front door at our show to provide each newly arriving child with a free stone right off the bat. I also line kids up and let them pick through a treasure chest activity when home-schoolers, Scouts, or other groups of kids take a field trip to our club’s little two-room museum. I will typically do the same thing when making visits to school classrooms to give invited presentations on rocks and minerals. Just as a warning: some kids will want to paw over every pebble in the chest and will still be unable to make up their minds about which one to pick, even as classmates clamor behind them to hurry up!

In addition to using tumbled stone as prizes or gifts, the flatter, more translucent rocks of this size may be incorporated into a kids’ booth activity, namely, making suncatchers. As a base, you might use plexiglass disks or the plastic tops of containers such as Pringles chip canisters with a small hole drilled near the edge. Kids glue on stones then run fishing line through the hole for a colorfully sparkling and ready-made object of art to hang against a windowpane.

Finally, Pile Four consists of stones that most folks would not even consider for Economy Class. All-too-often, these are simply tossed out. To use my Grandma’s phrase, these are the tiny “chibblin’s and nibblin’s” that seem far too small to serve any useful purpose. But, to use Yoda’s phrase, “useful are they, yes!”

I insert the tiniest chips into small glass vials that are less than two inches long (the sort of vials that gold panners like to use), thus crafting “Gemstone Jars.” I package these in 2X3-inch baggies along with a little card. Like the Gemstone Collections, the jars have proven to be popular as spinning wheel prizes. I have put larger chibblin’s and nibblin’s into either 2X2-inch baggies or somewhat larger jars like the single-portion jelly jars from hotels and restaurants. Once again, these get used as spinning wheel prizes.

Sand-Sifting Materials Too

We also use such small polished pieces for a sand-sifting activity at the kid’s booth, where kids use a screen or colander to pick a half dozen gems, minerals, fossils, or beads from a plastic tub filled with sand. One fellow VGMS member has suggested such chips might be drilled and used for constructing gemstone wire trees as another activity. But anyone who faints at the sight of blood and who has seen me in action with a tiny stone and a hand-held Dremel or Foredom drill might want to avert their gaze!

Do you have more ways in which you’ve employed tumbled polished stones, either at your annual club show or during workshops with your society’s Pebble Pups? If so, I’d love to hear about your experiences and good suggestions!

As you can see, I have found many ways you can use your tumble-polished stones at your next club gem show, even the tiniest stones you may have previously tossed into the bin as a useless by-product. You put a lot of time, effort, and expense into tumble polishing those stones. Why not maximize the results?

Visit Kingsley North for all of your tumbling and lapidary equipment and supply needs www.kingsleynorth.com.

The post Tumbling Talk: Maximizing Results for Kids’ Projects and Prizes first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

Indian Mounds Rock & Mineral Club has a juniors program that took on new life with 11-year-old Joan (Afton) Stoker. While 9-year-old Kreigh Tomaszewski looked on, Joan kept asking, “Mr. Pearl, what’s this rock?” But I’m getting ahead of myself. That was the 1960s, and there was no Indian Mounds Rock & Mineral Club, yet.

About now, you may be asking yourself, “Huh?” Trust me, and keep reading!

Returning to Roots

Every Saturday, as a youth, Joan attended the Grand Rapids Public Museum’s Rock Club in partnership with the Grand Rapids Gem & Mineral Society in Michigan. Geology activities in the morning, lunch, then lapidary lessons. Mary Jane Dockeray created the program while volunteers Les Pearl and Russ Girard oversaw the program. Joan soaked it in, becoming Junior Helper for the summer Nature Program. By age 15, she wasn’t just a helper; Joan was asked to teach the kids’ geology group! She, her friend Kreigh, and others also attended meetings of the Grand Rapids Gem & Mineral Society, without knowing what the future held.

Fast forward several years and as an adult, Joan, with her husband Craig, went on to a career with the Salvation Army. However, working with kids and rocks remained a thread throughout her life as she continued to teach summer camps, worked with scouts, helped with home-school workshops, and Science Olympiads. Upon retiring, Joan returned to her hometown. By that time, the Grand Rapids Gem & Mineral Society had dissolved, but a new club had taken its place: Indian Mounds Rock & Mineral Club (IMRMC).

IMRMC had long served children with school visits, show activities, and field trips, but starting in 2016, they kicked it up a notch. Just like when she was a teenager, Joan was back teaching rocks to kids, while serving as the club’s juniors coordinator. As it turned out, her childhood friend from way back when, Kreigh Tomaszewski, was president of the club and the two reconnected.

Joan, Kreigh, and fellow members have put together quite the juniors program. Not only do kids participate in adult events like silent auctions and Best-of-Year contests (including Most Unusual Specimen and Ugliest Rock), but kids also enjoy separate activities that, since 2016, have focused on the American Federation of Mineralogical Societies Future Rockhounds of America Badge Program.

Evolving Juniors

The club started with 16 kids, but that number quickly doubled. Joan customizes the program each month, with binders for participants and folders, as well as offering learning packs with rock samples. Joan also celebrates the junior club members’ successes and discoveries by reporting the happenings in the club newsletter.

Routinely, during summer months, the club hosts events such as fossil hunts, rock

crafts, and a metal detector hunt. I can attest personally just how much fun they have. While visiting my son’s family in Michigan, Joan invited us to participate in a fossil-collecting trip to a quarry in Rogers City, Michigan. We saw a wall of limestone blasted, witnessed a “mixing bowl” crush truckloads of boulders, and collected beautiful fossils.

Fossils were also a theme when the group met Michigan’s Joseph “PaleoJoe” Kchodl, who has written a book about Michigan fossils. Fun is further enjoyed as junior members participate in the club’s annual show, entering displays and helping at children’s tables.

Kreigh proudly notes how Joan has created a community environment, bringing kids and adults together in ways that are fun and meaningful. Joan herself says the hobby is all about “DISCOVERING for the rest of your life,” Adding, “Always ask why, how, where?” She is quick to thank her parents, who created a lifelong love of science for their rock-loving daughter, and she is thankful to parents of current IMRMC juniors who similarly support their rock-loving kids and teens.

If you, too, would like to embark on a journey of discovery that includes fun and friendships that might last a lifetime, look for a rock club near you.

The post Rockhounding and Clubs Create Lifelong Connections first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

Do you know what happens when a life-long rockhound — whose professional background involves product development and academia — encounters the problem of finding an affordable and effective display for fluorescent minerals? A solution happens, and it’s in the form of the miniUVdisplay system.

The rockhound in question, Molly Reddish, began living out Plato’s famous phrase “Necessity is the mother of invention,” a little more than a year ago. “Prior to collecting UV reactive minerals, all of the stones I collected look beautiful in natural light, and even better in a jar full of water (with a splash of white vinegar),” explained Reddish, a Michigan native who spent much of her youth at her grandparent’s cottage near Grand Marais, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. “I have jars all around my house, and I enjoy their beauty every day, sitting on the windowsill or a table.

“When it came to displaying the UV reactive minerals, I put them in a jar, and under normal light, they were not that striking.”

Enjoying Fluorescence Rocks

To fully enjoy the fluorescence of rocks in her collection Reddish would grab a UV flashlight and hold it over the rocks, which is fine, but not a great solution for long-term appreciation. That’s when she discovered that the top rim of the Mason Jars she used to hold specimens could also hold the base of a UV flashlight. Well, she thought, if that works, then why not a hands-free battery-powered UV lamp to thoroughly enjoy the beauty of her collection?

After spending considerable time researching and asking for recommendations for devices that were within her budget and would fit well within a residence, as opposed to a public facility, Reddish was left with more questions and no answer.

That’s when she decided to use her experience and connections in product design to create a device that would meet her needs. It turns out, the time she put in to create the miniUVdisplay was the answer others were also seeking.

Inspired to Invent

“I did not think it was ‘so special,’ but everyone I talked to wanted one and said they had been searching for something to display their UV reactive rocks,” said Reddish, who now splits her time between Poughkeepsie, New York, where she is an assistant dean and fashion lecturer at Marist College, and a cottage in Grand Marais, Michigan, which often serves as the gathering point for her family. “I was then convinced to speak to a patent attorney, and I now have a provisional patent, with patent pending, on my display device that I call the miniUVdisplay.”

It’s been a fascinating life for this native of Rochester, Michigan thus far, but wherever life takes her, the love of rockhounding and family are constants. She’s lived in New York City, Portland, Oregon, Jakarta Indonesia, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Raleigh, North Carolina, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and has worked for various influential brands including Nike, Target, John Deere, and Vera Bradley. These locations and work experiences all contributed to the development of one, if not the most, important product to Reddish’s credit: the miniUVdisplay.

Reddish sells the ornamental and mini lamp displays via Etsy and eBay. Each device is powered by 3 AAA batteries and range in price from $30 to $40.

Reconnecting With Her Roots

While the last year or so has been filled with discovery, progress, and achievement, it’s also included many moments of reconnecting to her rockhounding roots.

“I suppose I never had a chance NOT to be a rockhound,” she explained. “My love of hunting rocks comes from my grandmother. My grandfather would go brook trout fishing for the day around Seney, Michigan, and (during that time) my grandmother took my mom and uncle to Agate Beach, in Grand Marais, in search of agates and colorful rocks. This is how my mom grew up, and she just never stopped going to different beaches on the south shore of Lake Superior in search of agates and other beautiful stones, and when I came along, this is just how we would spend time “up north.”

Despite a lifetime of rockhounding, Reddish’s exposure to fluorescence minerals was quite limited, until the discovery of the syenite clasts containing fluorescent sodalite, along the shore of Lake Superior by Erik Rintmaki (www.yooperlites.com).

“This discovery led me to not only search for these UV reactive materials on the beach but also research and purchase other minerals that are UV reactive,” Reddish said. “I have some nice specimens of UV reactive pink Mangano calcite that are just amazing, and since my favorite color is pink, it’s a win-win.”

Sharing A Love of Rock Hunting

Developing the miniUVdisplay device has allowed Reddish to help fellow rockhounds who are looking for something to better display their fluorescence collections, and it’s given her many opportunities to introduce the joy of rock hunting to others.

Plus, it’s brought her back “up north,” at least part of the year, to spend more time with family and continue one of their favorite traditions, rock hunting.

“The first thing that came to my mind is that we all love spending time together “up north” hunting for rocks, so having a place on Lake Superior was the goal,” explained Reddish. “It is nice to enjoy the great outdoors, be in nature, viewing God’s creation, and being with my family.”

As Reddish continues along the path of enjoying a life well-lived, now she is making sure it is also well illuminated.

For more information about Reddish’s miniUVdisplay, visit Etsy and eBay, and search for miniUVdisplay, and follow Reddish on Instagram @UV_reactive.

The post Rockhounding Roots Lead to Inventor Status first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

The annual gem and mineral event in Tucson, Arizona attracts people from all over the world who share an interest in gems and minerals. Every possible aspect of our science and hobby is represented during February. A major purpose and benefit of this annual event are for people with common interests to come together to converse, connect, be inspired, and learn from one another.

Decades ago, museum curators created a formal curators’ organization so they could share common problems, ideas, techniques, and successes, among other things. In the late 1960s, a group of us met at George and Dick Bideaux’s home in Tucson during the show and formed Friends of Mineralogy, a group organized to promote mineral education and create regional mineral books. Ours is one of many collector groups to have formed as a result of the show. One of the new organizations, the Women’s Mineral Retreat, has also emerged in this way, and it is a very dynamic and growing group.

Forging New Paths

What’s interesting is these earlier organizations were often comprised of men. That’s why I am so pleased to describe the role and purpose of the Women’s Mineral Retreat. Although not the formal name, I simply refer to this group as “Lady Rockhounds.”

Currently, membership is around 50 mineral and gem collectors and diggers. They are wives, sisters, daughters of miners, collectors, and dealers, and many of whom have been active in the hobby for years. The ladies are involved in mineral magazines, clubs, museums, writing, mineral photography, selling, and other aspects of the hobby. It is a great opportunity for me to discuss and applaud this special group of women who have organized, go into the field to collect, and have a great time while getting to know each other, away from shows and business.

For years, women have played an important and equal role within the hobby. Yet, for too long, mineral collecting, and mineral dealing have appeared to be largely a male activity.

Historically, the belief was women were bad luck underground. In some states, they were actually prohibited by law to work the mines. It was not long ago that myth was laid to rest, and women finally could work alongside male miners underground. Fortunately, the hobby has been more progressive, and their achievements in the hobby are being recognized more widely.

Women at the Helm

During my decades of collecting, I’ve had the great fortune to work with and recognize many women within the hobby. Just in my limited sphere and lifetime, many women have been important to the hobby. Think of Helen Rice, who helped establish the Rocky Mountain Federation of Mineral Societies and established the Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals with her husband Richard. Or, how about Shirley Leeson and Izzie Burns, both of whom worked tirelessly to promote and protect the hobby, by working with federal agencies to preserve collecting areas and rights.

Furthermore, some of the top mineral shows in this country are run by Laura Delano and her team. Also, Gloria Staebler heads up Lithographie, which produces a fine range of published works. My favorite wholesale mineral dealer was Susie Davis in Tucson, who probably handled more Arizona and Mexico minerals than anyone else while encouraging field collectors like this writer. We have all learned from the writings of June Culp Zeitner, and there’s the fine work of Pansy Kraus and now, Merle White, editors of Lapidary Journal, as well as the superb work by Marie Huizing, editor of Rocks and Minerals. I also hold Lynn Varon in special regard for her work with me on Rock & Gem. Plus, Cristi Cramer and Gail Spann are talented staff photographers for Mineralogical Record magazine, and Gail also volunteers as a docent at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science.

Earlier this year, we lost one of the great leaders in the American and Eastern Federation of Mineralogical Societies, Carolyn Weinberger. I readily admit Carolyn served as one of my important mentors, along with Dr. John Sinkankas.

And it is an absolute truth to me that the business, hobby, and science of minerals is all the better for the countless women who have contributed, participated in and made major contributions. Who hasn’t read and enjoyed the work of all these women, benefited from their leadership, contributions, and participation in our hobby?

I truly believe our mineral hobby has always been devoid of any form of prejudice. Everyone is welcome, and anyone who loves minerals can participate, regardless of financial standing, education, gender, sexual orientation, or other differences that seem to affect other activities. Among all hobbies, mineral collecting has always been universally accepting of those with a common interest in collecting, learning, and promoting minerals and all activities related to the science of mineralogy.

New Group and New Movement

With this introduction, I want to share with you this newly

organized group, which is a movement I admire and encourage. Like any good movement, it starts with an idea and the actions of those who think it is worth doing. It started as conversations among several collectors with common interests, and as they got to know one another the idea of field collecting together was born, and the Women’s Mineral Retreat was started.

This group welcomes women in the gem and mineral industry, collectors, dealers, miners, editors, teachers, jewelers to join. During a retreat, members organize trips into the field to collect together at a productive location somewhere in the U.S. and also visit a nearby museum or institution. The trips are as much about learning as they are about socializing and field collecting. The trips are well planned out and usually last about three days. The time of year varies, as mining seasons are different depending on location. Attendance on collecting trips is optional but limited by how many collectors each mining operation can handle at any given time.

In its first three years, the group has already successfully collected at Topaz Mountain Gem Mine in Colorado, which is owned and operated by the Dorris Family, the Oceanview Pegmatite mine in Pala, California, owned and operated by Jeff Swanger, and Hallelujah Junction, quartz locality, Peterson Mountain, Nevada, owned by Paul Geffner and partners. Nothing of major significance was unearthed at the Topaz mine, but collectors had a blast digging side by side until the threat of thunderstorms forced them to call it a day. In Pala, Jeff gave the group a tour of the pegmatite mine grounds, noting the historic site where George Kunz discovered the first specimen of the mineral later named kunzite. They also had the opportunity to tour under the ground. No one found any significant specimens, although everyone found small examples of tourmaline or a chunk of sparkly purple lepidolite.

Hallelujah Junction turned out to be a very fruitful adventure for everyone. The days and weeks before the visit mining there had been eventful. Large smoky quartz scepters were being encountered almost daily. There had even been a few amethyst specimens mined out. The members of the group were very excited to dig here.

Exciting Excursions

Within the first 15 minutes of digging, there were shrieks of excitement. “Look what I found!” followed by cheers from the other women. Melissa Jones, one of the organizers, hit a pocket not long into the day, which had to be extracted with a saw. Jan Greenspan pulled out a sweet “Neapolitan,” a clear, smoky and amethyst layered scepter head. Dawn Boushelle collected a beautiful dark smoky “celestial” crystal about the size of a small watermelon. Gail Spann found several excellent looking quartz scepter specimens. No one left empty-handed. With the ladies and crew having such a great time, they were invited back the next day and dug with the same enthusiasm.

The group’s members have been given the royal treatment when visiting various institutions as well. They were given a “behind the scenes” tour of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science led by Larry Havens. At the Gemological Institute of America (GIA), in Carlsbad, California, Kate Donovan led the group. They were also able to tour the WM Keck Museum in Reno, and Neil and Cami Prenn were gracious enough to allow the group to view their mineral collection. What a treat!

The group also enjoyed a two-day dig in October of 2019, at the famous Blanchard Mine, located in Socorro, New Mexico and operated by Ray DeMark. The Blanchard area was first mined for lead but is recognized by collectors primarily for its pastel-colored blue and purple fluorite. It has also produced well-crystallized specimens of galena, linarite, barite, gypsum, brochantite, anglesite and quartz.

The participants of the Women’s Mineral Retreat also toured the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, led by tour guides Virgil Leuth and Kelsey McNamara. This University has an astounding collection and the staff there is very helpful. The tour included the opportunity to see how mineral analysis is done.

Having collected at the Blanchard mine in the past myself, I know how rewarding this trip would be. Fluorite is abundant and some of the uncommon lead minerals exist there as well.

Serves to Inspire

I believe we will see even more of these types of groups and activities develop across the world, with the Women’s Mineral Retreat serving as the source of inspiration. It could very well be what the hobby needs to revitalize itself a bit.

And just a bit of advice for my fellow collectors who are men, by inviting the women in our lives to share our passion, it cannot but help make the hobby more universally inclusive and an even stronger area of interest for families to share.

For more information about the Women’s Mineral Retreats, visit the group’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/shecandigit, or email Kathy Waisman, one of the group’s organizers, at kathwaisman@gmail.com, and be sure to include Women’s Mineral Retreat in the subject line.

Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Melissa Jones for her assistance and valuable input in writing this column.

The post On the Rocks: Women’s Mineral Retreat first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

Bearpaw Shale Revealtions

These ammonites are found in the Cretaceous marine Bearpaw Shale Formation in south-central Alberta, centered around the city of Lethbridge. These deep shale formations are exposed in eroding cliffs along the river banks. These formations yield shells of three species of ammonites. The most common are the Placenticeras meeki and Placenticeras intercalare, with the genus Baculites the least common. A unique combination of depositional environment, temperature, and pressure altered the shells of these ammonites in such a way that they now display a complete spectrum of rainbow colors that rival the best Australian opal.

The ammonites from the Bearpaw Shale Formation that are of economic significance occur in two distinct zones called the K Zone and Blue Zone (Zone 4). They are identified by their stratigraphic position relative to a distinctive double ash bed (bentonite), which is easy to spot in the otherwise uniform gray shale. The K Zone produces ammonites with a predominantly red and green flash and the ammonites are called blazers. Those from the blue zone tend to have more vibrant green, purple/violet, and blue colors. K Zone fossils are most often found in disc-shaped concretions.

One of the many interesting things I discovered about these ammonites is how their shells were preserved in the mud. Think of it as shells of the still-living chambered nautilus. The body of the squid-like animal lives in the largest and newest part of the growing shell, while the chambers behind it are empty and connected by a narrow tube. The chambered nautilus controls its buoyancy by introducing or removing gas from the empty chambers. Ammonites utilized the same strategy to stay at optimal levels in the inland sea where they prospered.

When an ammonite died, it sank to the bottom where it was gradually buried in the soft gray mud with the open chamber that had held the body. The mud could not get into the sealed chambers behind it and as the shell became more compressed, due to deeper burial, these chambers tended to collapse. This distinctive pattern is easy to spot on prepared specimens.

Incomplete Shells Prized by Jewelry Makers

Often, incomplete shells are recovered and used in jewelry making. This material, which is known as ammolite, is one of the few recognized gemstones that has an organic origin. When found, it can occur in both compacted and uncompacted forms with the latter having to be stabilized with acrylic resin to prevent it from delaminating and splitting into thin sheets. Both forms can produce stunning cabochons when properly prepared. Cabochons can be freeform or calibrated, with freeform being the most common.

Compacted ammolite is usually prepared as a doublet with a shell layer backed by shale. It can often be purchased with a clear acrylic topcoat (ice jewelry grade acrylic) or just a polished shell surface. Uncompacted ammolite must first be stabilized with a penetrating acrylic resin before it can be worked. Finished cabs can have a shale backing and acrylic topcoat, or treated as a triplet with a backing of basanite and a quartz cap.

The gem ammonites are mined both commercially, by companies like Korite which utilize strip mining to locate specimens, and by a loose confederation of native miners who scour the shale cliffs along the rivers for ammonite containing concretions. In either case, the quantity of ammonites being mined is quite limited, thus making rough ammolite quite difficult to find on the open market.

Korite controls their supply from mining to finished jewelry while their sister company Canada Fossils LTD sells whole ammonites, finished hand samples, and also calibrated and freeform cabs.

Blackfoot Confederacy Miners At Work

As the commercial enterprises are well known, in this article I’m focusing on two native

miners who dig and sell ammonites and ammolite they find on tribal land that is part of the Blackfoot Confederacy. The Blackfoot Confederacy is composed of four bands, three of which reside in the provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia Canada, with the fourth found in Montana.

Historically members of the confederacy were nomadic bison hunters, but due to incursions of settlers, many reside on reserves (reservations), one of which borders the Oldman and Saint Mary rivers.

Among the native miners who dig in this area is Wes EagleChild. He is a member of the Blood Nation. He has taken the mining of Alberta ammonites to a whole new level, choosing to rappel 500 feet above the ground over the sides of somewhat unstable vertical shale cliffs located along the Oldman River. His profession as a structural steel ironworker on high rises has given him both the nerve and skill to navigate the treacherous slopes, where he spots ammonite concretions eroding out of the friable shale. He does most of his hunting in the K Zone and often the areas he hunts are inaccessible to other miners.

Before descending the cliff face well above the ravine, EagleChild prepares and checks his climbing gear. He carries all of the tools and supplies he needs for excavating fossils he finds in a pack he carries on his back. Each tool has its place in or on his pack. He has to be careful because if anything is dropped, it will end up in the river well below where he hunts. Once he has checked his gear, he anchors his climbing rope to a large steel crowbar that he hammers into the ground at the top of the cliff he will descend.

Eroding Concretions Strong Indicator of Ammonite

On most of his hunts, Wes looks for shale concretions eroding out of the cliff face. These are where the ammonite fossils are usually found. When he spots one, EagleChild traverses over and digs a trench below the spot, so he has a place to stand. Next, he evaluates the concretion to see if it contains a fossil. If it does, he carefully picks away loose shale from above and on the sides of the concretion. Most of the ammonites he finds are extracted in large pieces, due to their exposure to the elements. He is careful to retrieve all of the pieces so the specimen can be put back together later.

EagleChild doesn’t find ammonites on every trip and the quality and completeness of those he finds vary, which makes finding a good specimen a special event. One question I had is how does he get back to the top once he has hunted an area, and he told me rappels to the bottom of the cliff and then has to find a way to hike back to the top. He said he may repeat this process several times on any given day when working on a cliff. I have to say, one such trip would pretty much wipe me out.

I have been following Wes on Youtube for some time, and have enjoyed the videos he posts documenting his mining adventures. It’s mesmerizing watching him crisscross the cliff walls, and he often reminds me of Spider-Man as he moves along while constantly keeping an eye out for falling shale. Although he often works solo, his cousins James and Cory Eaglechild accompany him, and on occasion, his wife, Andrea, also joins him.

Another native miner who can be found digging for ammonites and ammolites in this area is Troy Knolton. He is a member and tribal council member of the Piikani Nation (Northern Piikani). While he also hunts the cliffs along the Oldman and Saint Mary rivers, he opts to take a ground-level approach, versus rappeling the cliff walls. Sometimes he also uses a kayak, skillfully navigating the river while scouring the cliff face for ammonites, to cover more territory at a time.

Year-Round Hunt

Plus, for this ammonite hunter, even Calgary’s winter weather isn’t a complete deterrent.

Knolton hunts for specimens year-round, even in the dead of winter when the rivers are frozen over and the temperatures in Calgary dip well below the point where most people would consider even spending a few minutes outdoors.

Knolton operates Blackfoot Rocks and Gems, through which he sells, among other items, the ammolite jewelry he makes. He and his fiance Lisa frequent most of the big rock and mineral shows and events in their area, including the popular Calgary Stampede, and Vancouver Gem & Mineral Show. The couple collaborates in work as in life, with Troy working up freeform cabochons and Lisa handling the wire wrapping.

The couple’s work has earned them recognition on an international scale, as the organizers of the Calgary Stampeded event purchased a Blackfoot Rocks and Gems ammolite pendant to present to the Duchess of Cambridge in 2011, and in 2017 the organizers again sought out a piece of ammolite jewelry for her Imperial Highness Princess Toshi of Japan, when she visited the Japanese Gardens in Lethbridge.

Honoring Traditions

For both EagleChild and Knolton the traditions passed down from their forefathers are honored daily as the two men work with a natural resource found within tribal lands to create something beautiful to share with the world.

For more information about Wes EagleChild and his work, visit his Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/w.eaglechild or email him at w.eaglechild74@gmail.com.

For more information about Troy Knolton, visit hisFacebook page https://www.facebook.com/BlackfootRocksandGems or email him at blackfoot.ammolite@gmail.com.

The post Hunting for Ammonites first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

My first experience of Lava Plains (North Queensland, Australia) was around 1985, when a local farmer allowed ‘friends of friends’ to wander around certain areas of his holdings, camp in a rough shelter used for putting out cattle lick in the summer, and randomly pick up bits of sapphire and anything else shiny wherever we saw it.

Hailing from Cairns (tropical locale considered the gateway to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef), our winter clothes consisted of tracksuits, jeans, and a spray jacket. We arrived at Lava Plains in July, full of enthusiasm for a weeks’ holiday spent alone in the bush with the promise of treasure to be found.

Venturing Into the Plains

The weather was clear, with bright, glorious sunshine and by nightfall, it was absolutely freezing. So much so we went to bed with the sun every night, wearing every garment we could fit on, under every blanket that we had bought, huddled together like a litter of puppies until the morning. The days were only marginally warmer and the only skin to see the light of day was on our hands; quite a shock to our tropical blood. It became one of those ‘remember the time’ family legends that we recall quite clearly some 30 years later, and not because of the gemstones which were scarce and poor quality. It is probably no surprise that it took us a long while to gather our courage to return for another go.

In 2016, with most of our party being new to fossicking (the Australian and New Zealand term for prospecting), we decided to try our luck with sapphires again and planned a long weekend trip to the Lava Plains fossicking area. We had done a lot of research into where to go and what to look for and felt we had a good chance of success this time around. What was unexpected on this particular weekend, was that working in a red soil area in the rain is a challenge in itself.

Not only was it cold and damp, but wet red soil becomes like glue on the bottom of everything — tyres (tires) shoes, buckets etc., and just builds up as you move, making you taller and your feet heavier with each step. After a couple of fruitless hours, we grudgingly admitted that Mother Nature had beaten us as the wash was impossible to dig or sieve. So we retreated, gemless, about 115km back to the Ravenshoe Highway to Innot Hot Springs to stay at the caravan park. It is fair to say that our second experience at Lava Plains wasn’t terribly encouraging either, and just as uncomfortable as the first, albeit for a different reason.

Focused Fossicking

However, not to pass up a weekend of fossicking, we headed to Mount Gibson, a few kilometers to the north of the caravan park, to look for topaz crystals on the hilltops of the old Patricia and Glittering Star mines. Mid-year in this area is really cold (by tropical standards), so the biggest drawcard of the Innot Hot Springs Caravan Park is the swimming pools that have heated water pumped from the local hot thermal spring. Being able to relax in the heated pools after a long day digging for topaz is just what the doctor ordered and it doesn’t get much better than that, sapphires or no sapphires.

Lava Plains is the general permission fossicking area on Lava Plains Station and the only known sapphire field in the district. Previously camping was permitted near the fossicking site, but the current landowner has disallowed camping for the usual reasons. Lava Plains is within the geological McBride Basalt Province. The area has a heavy covering of basalt rocks associated with the volcanic activity that formed the Undara Lava Tubes on Mt Surprise Station to the west. There has been considerable controversy over the geological formation of the sapphire-bearing areas in Australia, with theories that were proven in one field being soundly shot down on a neighboring field. The following excerpt from a lecture given in 2003 by Jim Elliott of Coolamon Pty Ltd, who extensively mined Aussie sapphire fields in Central and North Queensland, states:

“The conventional theory has it that the formation of the Central Queensland and the Lava Plains sapphire resources is the result of major extrusions or emissions from large volcanic sources and that the sapphire was subsequently transported by large river systems and deposited in the areas where it is currently mined today.

As a result of observations during some 20 years of mining on the Central Queensland Gemfields and five years on the Lava Plains field, I believe this theory to be totally incorrect.

I believe that the sapphire was produced from a large number of smaller vents which are located throughout the sapphire producing areas and that the sapphire never moves any significant distance from its point of origin at the surface.”

Understanding ‘Water-Worn’ Sapphire

He goes on to propose the ‘water-worn’ sapphire was actually created in that shape and appearance whilst being formed, rather than from the abrasive action on crystals traveling in streams or rivers for long periods of time. His theory makes a lot of logical sense. If you wish to research this matter further, consider: http://www.australiansapphire.com/sapphire_formation_theory.htm

The locality at the center of our research has been a prime cattle-raising area since

the mid-1800’s. The German explorer, Ludwig Leichardt, traveled through the region in 1846 and on reaching the top of the range to the east of the fossicking area, found a bountiful valley with abundant water and good grass. Leichardt named it Valley of Lagoons and today it is a cattle station of that name. He blazed a tree with his initials on the spot where he first saw the valley.

The author of a story in the Brisbane newspaper The Week wrote in 1908 “It (the tree) was burned down by a man who was not interested in the historical association.” Leichardt undertook this exploratory expedition from Brisbane, up the coast of Queensland, across Cape York and finally along the eastern coast of the Northern Territory ending at Port Essington, north of Darwin.

This remarkable trek, on foot and horseback, covered 4800 km of untouched wilderness and took 14 months. Government authorities had given up hope, believing the party to have perished on a route as the terrain is extreme, food in short supply along the way and the local Aboriginal people often hostile.

Locating the Lava Plains

Lava Plains is about 200 km southwest of Cairns via Atherton, on the Atherton Tablelands, then through Ravenshoe and Mt Garnet. After leaving Mt Garnet, travel 62 km on the Kennedy Developmental Road towards Hughenden where you will meet the Gulf Developmental Road turnoff heading west to Normanton and Karumba. There is an old gravel pit and a toilet block here where caravans often camp for a night or just stop for a cuppa. Continue on the Kennedy Developmental Road another 35 km to Lava Plains Station.

The fossicking area is on the left-hand side of the highway, marked only with a small sign in a clearing and I’m pretty sure we have overshot it on every visit. There is a parking area with a locked gate to stop vehicular access to the mine road, which is wide and well maintained (albeit very rocky and uneven to walk on), leading through the permitted fossicking area to a privately-owned mining lease. Entry to this lease is not permitted, especially after the lease owners lost most of their mining camp and equipment to serious theft.

The parking area has a turnstile that gives you enough room to squeeze yourself and a wheelbarrow through, and from there it is a 15-20 minute walk to the fossicking area of Wyandotte Creek.

Again, we decided to do a couple of days fossicking for sapphire at Lava Plains over the July long weekend in 2017. Being a good three-hour drive from home, we thought we would give Pinnarendi Station Stay and Cafe a go as our base camp. I contacted Nadine Atkinson on their Facebook page to book our sites, and as we had become a party of seven or eight vehicles who wanted to camp together, she was very obliging in giving us the larger sites so we could all fit comfortably.

Appealing Accommodations

The camping areas are so new that they were running cables for power and water infrastructure the day we arrived, with trenches and conduits having to be negotiated with care. There is a new amenities block that was yet not operational, but we all managed to share the one toilet/shower room with all the other campers/caravanners, which was a surprising number for a very new enterprise. The cafe offers coffee and morning tea/brunch, and a home-style hot meal every night if you book it in the morning. Saturday night is traditionally wood-fired sourdough pizzas, amazing gourmet varieties made while you watch, all you can eat for $20, and you can be sure some of the young men in our party got their money’s worth. Altogether, I would highly recommend Pinnarendi and we plan to stay there again.

But, let’s get back to sapphires. We made the 45-minute drive from Pinnarendi towards Greenvale to Lava Plains on the first and third days of our trip, with the middle day being a trip to O’Briens’ Creek for topaz.

I am an avid ‘specker’ myself and find that I pick up as much colour as the die-hard dig-and-sieve brigade, which makes me a bit unpopular at times. Specking is the Aussie term for walking around a likely digging site with your eyes glued to the ground, picking up stones that have been overlooked by others or that have been exposed by heavy rain.

Gems like topaz, sapphire, agate and opal are often found by this method because they are shiny or colourful, and some surprisingly impressive stones are found on a regular basis.

Fossicking Process

It did appear as though the creek where we were digging had been commercially mined in places at various times, which means that finding the original gem-bearing wash is almost impossible and the majority of the good stones are gone.

It has been said that the mining machinery was designed to catch only the bigger stones and in theory, there should be gem-quality smaller stones that escaped the process remaining to be found by fossickers. The ground is very rocky, and the soil hard-packed and difficult to extract from between the boulders. Once in the sieve, the dark wash contains a lot of clay clods which must be broken apart for inspection, so it is by no means an easy field to work.

Having a supply of water to wash the gravel would have made the process much easier, but the creeks are all dry in the winter months and the fossicking area too inaccessible to consider carting water with us. All of our party are keen bush-campers and we just really enjoyed being out in the fresh air, sunshine, and bushland, with the hard yakka being part of the appeal.

Overall, we had an enjoyable five or six hours each visit, with all of us acquiring a spoonful of green or blue chips and bigger flawed bits, a deep cobalt blue being the Lava Plains predominant shade. Only one stone, found by my son-in-law, was a possible gem-quality cutter.

It is amazing how the trip walking back to the cars in the afternoon, although mostly downhill, always seems much more tedious than the one going uphill in the morning.

I had collected my haul of gems in a small glass jar. On our last day, as I was heaving my weary bones into our Landcruiser to leave, the jar dropped from my hand, landed neatly on the rockslider bar, smashed to smithereens in the long grass and I lost the lot. So if you ever visit Lava Plains, remember to have a quick speck around the carpark and you might be lucky.

Memories Created, Valuable Lessons Learned

I have always felt that fossicking is a game of chance, and like gambling, becomes

addictive. Being enthusiastic gem-hunters, I know we will return to Lava Plains for years to come, as ‘you just never know what you might find’ despite our previous experiences. Good stones have and still do, come from this field.

In mid-2016, as our families traveled through Mt. Surprise topaz-hunting, we stopped at the Gem Den, one of the local rock shops, where Leigh’s son bought a lovely blue Lava Plains faceted sapphire for the centre stone of the engagement ring for his future wife (Jenni’s daughter), thus Lava Plains has a lot of memories and good associations for us.

The Gem Den has a large range of beautiful local and imported, cut and rough gems of all sorts and quality ready-made jewelry for sale, well worth a look if you are passing through and you could get yourself a little, quality piece of Australia as a souvenir to remember your visit.

The post Lava Plains first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.

Whether you are a seasoned rockhound with at least a few decades of living under your belt, or a child just discovering the beauty and wonder of nature, pretty polished stones are often appreciated universally. That’s part of what attracted Kelly Hale to the hobby of rock collecting and polishing and ultimately led her to purchase a Tumble-Bee® TB-22 tumbler. Learn how Tumble-Bee, one of four product lines within the Reentel Inc. family, not only enhanced Kelly’s appreciation but also introduced her children to rock tumbling.

R&G: How long have you been using the TB-22 Rock Tumbler and what influenced your decision to purchase?

Kelly Hale: I have been using the Tumble-Bee rock tumbler for two years now. Ease of use, advanced safety features, and the Tumble-Bee’s modernized look and design is what really attracted me to purchase this rock tumbler. They’re also very affordable and make great gifts for kids!

R&G: What are two surprising benefits you’ve discovered while using this item of equipment?

KH: With extensive use of the Tumble-Bee, I’m certainly pleased with the durability of this rock tumbler (I’ve used other brands that have broke mid tumbling). I’ve also found that the Tumble-Bee is very user-friendly. In fact, it’s so easy to use that even my kids are hooked and love using the machine.

R&G: What three important skills/approaches to your work have you learned from using the TB-22 Rock Tumbler by Tumble-Bee?

KH: This tumbler can polish more than just rocks. I’ve successfully polished glass, metals, and even jewelry with the Tumble-Bee. I also learned that Tumble-Bee’s 4-pound barrel runs on the same chassis as my model, allowing me to tumble double the amount of material at once.

Check out the Tools of the Trade category to see more insight from artists who use machinery from Reentel Inc.’s various product lines.

The post Attracting Young Rockhounds With Tumble-Bee first appeared on Rock & Gem Magazine.