Charlie the Rockhound

Someone on one of the many geology pages and blogs that I keep track of  posted this lovely photo, which reminded me of my true dedication in life, picking up bright shiny (or dull seeming but geologically interesting) rocks and pebbles wherever I go. I have labelled bags at home from all over the world, and it's a source of endless contention with my life partner due to the endless limits to storage space.

Rockhounds are amateur geologists, with or without formal qualifications, sometimes earning their main income from rocks. Some buy and sell rocks, others just collect from any available source they come across, from mineral shops and fairs to remote locales in mountains or deserts. Some specialise, for example in agate, volcanics, fossils or meteorites, others try to gather samples of all 5,000+ known minerals (see http://tinyurl.com/kzlp9ky). Many are very knowledgeable on practical geology and mineral identification, and there are many groups, local clubs and fora for information and rock exchange. Many rockhounds also tumble polish or cut their own gems, beads or cabochons. So you see, its many slices of hobby all focused around a common interest: fondling lithos.

The main branch loves to get out there in nature with a hammer (sledge or otherwise), handlens and collecting bag, following up leads, visiting known collecting sites or hanging around amongst old mine tailings. Collecting is subject to laws and property rights (for example collecting in national parks is usually banned), so check your local rules and ask the land owner's permission before you go out and bash rocks.

Charlie himself is eight years old, loves going out hunting rocks with his family, and is sitting in the geode for a reason...My wife is always complaining that whenever we go to the wilderness, all the photos that I take of her are in front of some rocks or other, and she feels that the only reason I snap them is to have her showing the scale. There is some truth in this I confess, and Charlie is doing the same, showing the size of the geode for a prospective buyer.....

I suspect many of you kind readers are fellow rockhounds, active or passive, so lets raise a communal glass to our lovely hobby, and proudly announce your existence by liking or commenting on this post.

Loz

Image credit: Dave and Tonia Griffith

Underwater landscape Resembling the rising towers in some underwater cave city in a science fiction movie, hollow inclusions in a translucent light blue agate from Brazil rise out of an older layer of agate into the younger core. Geodes remember tend to fill the cavities (usually vesicles in lavas) from the outside in, some only forming crusts of quartz like the many examples from the Parana flood basalts in Uruguay, others get completely filled, often by several generations of growth from different pulses of fluids. These will contain different proportions of dissolved elements, forming the various colours in the agate. The red alga like fronds are iron oxide inclusions, probably haematite, while the yellow are either limonite or goethite, other iron oxides. Loz Image credit: agateswithinclusions.com

kyaniteking

Take the lot!

Not offering many at this price!

See highlights post for the 4 10pc lots

SPIRALITE GEMSHELLS

Spiralite gemshells are estimated to be over 100 million years old, each of these shell / geodes is the unusual left-hand coiling kind which is a rarity in the domain of shells. Left-hand turning shells are known as sinistra shells. Completely agatized and replaced by stunning quartz druzy in a myriad of colors and crystal types making each one a unique and desirable gem that treads the boundary between fossil and crystal.