ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Aug 23, 2017 20:24:57 GMT -5
We all have a good excuse.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Aug 23, 2017 17:04:40 GMT -5
Yes, you are the one decides what is the correct amount.... (I would have done the same) I agree with this statement but I do believe there is a limit to what is ok. Big problem with people stealing pudding stones in my area. There is a value to them per pound now so business and personal property landscaping have been hit. I now have two trail cams up north. One on my driveway that catches anyone that enters and another pointed at a pile of about 2,500 pounds of pudding stones. On a similar note: local news story (michigan) last year www.clickondetroit.com/news/farmington-hills-man-charged-with-larceny-after-taking-rocks-from-livonia-streetChuck I've seen your posts on here where you guys hunt on public property and remove massive boulders weighing upwards of 50 lbs. The maximum amount allowed to be removed is 25 lbs per year. You are breaking state law every time you do it. People in glass houses....you know?
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Aug 22, 2017 17:55:41 GMT -5
I have picked up a few half dollar sized ones from restaurant parking lots over the years but I would not be taking rocks that size from private property. They were all that big and bigger. We left probably 20 bigger ones there. Three beautiful rocks were sitting there going to waste. I will start replacing the puddingstone with some granite. No one will care.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Aug 22, 2017 16:15:13 GMT -5
Today we checked a pile with bigger rocks and found bigger puddingstones. Here's three big ones found today in a shopping center driveway island.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Aug 21, 2017 19:14:07 GMT -5
Here's the slabs from the first stone I cut.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Aug 21, 2017 16:31:35 GMT -5
We used to drive hundreds of miles sometimes looking for puddingstone. Most of the time we would come home empty handed and $30 less in our pocket because of the gas used. We were reading a book about finding agates and it mentioned landscaping rocks around businesses. We decided to give it a shot. To make a long story shorter we found no agate but seem to have stumbled into a seemingly huge resource for Michigan Puddingstone. The photo below shows some we found in just two parking lots and less than an hour searching.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Aug 20, 2017 11:45:15 GMT -5
The almost final tally of finished greenstone "cabs" (and I use that term loosely). Turns out the ratio of actual well patterned stones to useless ones is about 1 out of 10. So, I polished 130 stones to come out with these 13 stones. Good thing is, you can almost always tell a useless stone with only a little grinding. The big one on the left has orange datolite and the big elongated one above the one with datolite has a copper inclusion which is the light dot on it
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Aug 13, 2017 7:10:15 GMT -5
Were you folks using worms and bobbers? Nice catches. You keep walleye and perch to eat??? If they would bite we would. Yes he was using nightcrawlers and a bobber most of the time but he catches quite a few without a bobber. Went fishing again today and only caught two more bass. He decided to tie on a little Cleo spoon and try for some walleye or salmon. Turns out the only thing that would hit the spoon was sheepshead of which he landed three. They aren't good to eat. They were all about ten pounds each. They fight like bulls.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Aug 11, 2017 22:48:13 GMT -5
Nice little bass I live near a lake and have done no fishing this year walt This channel connects White Lake to Lake Michigan.....two, two, two lakes in one😁 Lake Michigan on the left and white lake on the right. Can't wait till the end of August when the salmon start heading up the channel....they get huge in Lake Michigan. Fish over 15 pounds are common during the run. The fish caught here are found deep at about 20 feet on a rockpile that is visible in the following screenshot. When fish are on these rocks they are actively feeding. For the sake of scale, the pier is about 50 feet wide. Try as I might, the fish here are not fooled by lures and spoons and refuse to bite on anything but nightcrawlers. The water here is Crystal clear here and that's why the fish aren't fooled by any kind of lure.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Aug 11, 2017 20:28:02 GMT -5
Hubby went fishing at the White Lake channel jetty and caught a total of 8 largemouth and 5 small mouth bass. Throw in 2 or 3 white perch as well. Since we don't like to eat bass, it was catch and release even on the keepers. A bass in Michigan needs to be at least 14" to keep. The first pic is about a 16 inch largemouth. My hubby's foot is about 12 1/2". The fish weighed around 5 pounds. The next picture is another keeper we released. It's at least the same size as the other keeper. Below is one of the small mouths he caught. And next the BIG small mouth he caught. Last....and least😉 a really big rock bass (yet still really big for a rock bass.)
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Aug 11, 2017 7:13:10 GMT -5
I just googled greenstone Ely and it talks about greenstone. There must be many different types. Oh well I'm sorry spiceman. I should have never referred to it by it's nickname. Perhaps you should Google chlorastrolite instead. 😉 It's also known as pumpyllite. I googled ely greenstone and found that the greenstone there is a form of pillow lava and is at best a distant cousin of a rock to Isle Royal greenstone. Not as expensive or worth as much as chlorastrolite, but locally (in ely at least) famous. You have led me to learn about a mineral I never heard of so thank you😁
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Aug 11, 2017 6:54:06 GMT -5
Uhhhm...,.spiceman......you must be speaking of something other than what I am. The greenstone I mention can not be found in Ely Minnesota. The largest known piece of (chlorastrolite) greenstone resides in the Smithsonian and is about 1 1/2 cm by 3 1/2 cm. That is pretty small. All locations for finding it as far as I know are in Michigan. Hence, it having the designation state gemstone of Michigan. Perhaps there is something in Ely known as greenstone, but it is not the mineral called chlorastrolite, which is the correct name for what is called greenstone in Michigan. You must not have read anything I wrote previously. I just googled greenstone Ely and it talks about greenstone. There must be many different types. Oh well I'm sorry spiceman. I should have never referred to it by it's nickname. Perhaps you should Google chlorastrolite instead. 😉
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Aug 10, 2017 21:21:57 GMT -5
Greenstone, found a nice chunk months ago. Looked it up and the largest chunk of greenstone is at the place we always went fishing. Minnesota, Ely but back in the 1980's Rocks were the last thing on my mind. It was weird that I knew the location of Ely. Ely is not far from the Canadian border. Uhhhm...,.spiceman......you must be speaking of something other than what I am. The greenstone I mention can not be found in Ely Minnesota. The largest known piece of (chlorastrolite) greenstone resides in the Smithsonian and is about 1 1/2 cm by 3 1/2 cm. That is pretty small. All locations for finding it as far as I know are in Michigan. Hence, it having the designation state gemstone of Michigan. Perhaps there is something in Ely known as greenstone, but it is not the mineral called chlorastrolite, which is the correct name for what is called greenstone in Michigan. You must not have read anything I wrote previously.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Aug 10, 2017 20:54:55 GMT -5
Below is a photo of some basalt matrix with amygdaloids filled with greenstone. Below is a photo of a HUGE greenstone still encased in a super hard piece of basalt. I don't think this one will ever come out in one piece.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Aug 10, 2017 20:32:24 GMT -5
We did find some exceptionally large greenstones. Two are pictured below. The one on the right is rough with no polishing and (don't tell anyone😉) has been epoxied back together after splitting neatly in half upon extraction from the basalt matrix. The one on the right looks like it is going to be one of the nine out of ten that isn't going to be a good looking one after some preliminary polishing shows almost no pattern.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Aug 10, 2017 20:17:46 GMT -5
Thanks for posting these. I hadn't seen them before, but now that I have seen them- I think I had one and gave it away before I knew much about rocks. It was about as big as these. I had no idea what they were. They don't get very big and are pretty rare. The correct name for them is chlorastrolite. They are only found on Isle Royale in Lake Superior and in some of the amygdaloidal basalt poor rock piles in the Keweenaw peninsula. Isle Royale is a National park and collecting there is against the law so all new examples of this mineral now originate in the mine piles. The best ones are found on Isle Royale. What makes it good? The best ones have turtle shell pattern and good chatoyance. The mine pile ones are darker in color and never found looking like the classic water worn and polished ones from the island. Plus, on the island they are found sans matrix. The ones from the mine piles have to be busted free from the basalt matrix then manually polished. The Michigan Greenstone is the state gem of Michigan as well.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Aug 9, 2017 18:37:05 GMT -5
Hubby finally polished up a couple of greenstones we broke out of some amygdaloid basalt. They are pretty dark ones and not real chatoyant unfortunately. So far only about 1in 10 stones actually have any greenstone patterning. Photo below under florescent light. Below is the same stone next to a penny and shot with a phone call flash. There is a touch of datolite at the top. That stone needs the edges straightened and will most likely find a home in a ring someday. The smaller stone pictured below is the second out of about twenty stones to actually have turtleshell pattern. A closer view We are already running out of large (meaning the two shown, which are actually pretty large for greenstones) stones to polish but we have a mess of medium sized ones.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Jul 24, 2017 20:57:41 GMT -5
Day four we broke camp and headed back towards home with stops at Jasper Knob in Ishpeming and a side trip to Grand Marais. We finally found Jasper Knob and I stayed in the car while hubby went up the hill to get a couple of photos and hopefully some jaspillite. Below is a pic looking out over Ishpeming from the top. Below: A pic of the mass of jaspillite at the top ( a small portion of it) This stuff is super hard and was almost impossible to break some off. He finally got a small portion to take with him. We failed to take photos at Grand Marais but hubby did manage to find one low quality agate. It is about quarter size. After that it was back across the bridge. Then a stop at Weinerlicious for a foot long and our trip was done. Today we broke a bunch of greenstone out of the matrix. All we did was hit the basalt with the rock hammer. Lots of hits when the rock broke four or five nodules of varying sizes would literally fall out intact. When a big one got exposed, we simply held on to the nodule with one hand while breaking the matrix away with the hammer until it could be popped free. We got some really big ones but they don't all polish up right. Below is a pic of some of the bigger ones. We will post pics of the ones that shine up well. We started slabbing some of the Prehnite today. It is some nice looking material. It looks like there is datolite included in some of the Prehnite slabs as well. We will be posting pics of the finished greenstones when they get done.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Jul 24, 2017 20:17:04 GMT -5
By day three we had so much rock that we needed to save some room for the jaspillite we planned on getting the next day on the trip home. Time for some tourism. First we followed route 26 to Lake Linden looking for old smelting Mills. Below is pics of the ruins of one of them. Next we went to prospectors paradise and almost bought some puddingstone (the price, at five dollars, was right, but we couldn't find one with enough jasper.) Inside they have an awesome variety of high quality specimen pieces. We left and headed north on 41 to go and see Mandan, which is basically a ghost town. We found the nearby Medora mine posted with no trespassing. Typical of lots of the formerly accessable mine piles now privately owned and closed to collecting. Below are some photos of the three houses still left in Mandan. Some are still used today. Below: One of the abandoned ones. Next we headed for the road to High Rock Bay. The road turned into a four wheel track before we ever got to our destination and we were forced to turn around or risk damaging out front wheel drive Ford Fusion. There were beautiful wildflowers along the road. Next we drove to the top of Brockway Mtn. Down on Lake Superior a Great Lakes freighter sails past. The view off the east bluff is no less spectacular. After leaving Brockway Mountain we headed south on route 41 and ended up at the Quincy mine. There was an old miners house which we walked through. There was old mining equipment and locomotives. We found this huge piece of float native copper laying outside one of the buildings. With a little sleuthing we found probably the last remaining poor Rock pile at the Quincy mine. Upon examination hubby found no usable material. We left and headed south on 41 until we crossed the Portage River then headed south on route 26 to check out the South Range and Painsdale mines. The poor Rock piles were less than spectacular and we left with nothing from either of them. We left Painsdale and headed south to Toivola where we followed the road to agate beach. While it didn't live up to it's name, I did find one agatey looking rock. Too bad we forgot to take pics on this beautiful beach. This was how day three ended.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Jul 24, 2017 19:06:59 GMT -5
Beautiful scenery and good report. Thanks for taking us along. Hope you brought marshmallows! We went looking to buy some up there but, strangely, they were sold out at every place we looked😉
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