callmerob
starting to spend too much on rocks
I really like a dirt road
Member since September 2019
Posts: 143
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Post by callmerob on Jun 15, 2023 12:44:45 GMT -5
Found these at the local rock show a few years ago in the Before Times. Not very well made, lots of flat spots, roundish, soft like a calcite, shiny like wax, cheap. Less than 2” and still needing roughing. $3 each.  And Etsy has a banded aragonite sphere for $40…  And sagegoddess dot com says… “These brown aragonite spheres are special because they radiate stress relieving energies in ALL directions, sending out a steady vibrational pulse. Trust me,” … So there’s that too. My chakras are ok, thank you very much, and while I’m not buying what sagegoddess is selling, there are rocks that “radiate energies in ALL directions”. Fiestaware uranium oxide orange glaze  Oak Ridge has the details. In milli-rems/hour. www.orau.org/health-physics-museum/collection/consumer/ceramics/fiestaware.htmlBut radiating energies or not, these need roughing. Grinding all 5 like a mini-production run.    1000 grit, eventually  Pre-polish and polish  Had family visiting and promptly gave away two of them. Fun rocks.  Hope you like ‘em.  |
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Post by rockjunquie on Jun 15, 2023 15:00:27 GMT -5
I do like them, but I especially like those wee little grinders. They are so cute.  |
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callmerob
starting to spend too much on rocks
I really like a dirt road
Member since September 2019
Posts: 143
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Post by callmerob on Jun 15, 2023 15:26:41 GMT -5
I do like them, but I especially like those wee little grinders. They are so cute. Thanks. The wee grinders are water bottle caps, fill with grit, smush a dent, add superglue. And I added loose grit paste to the spheres, so I made a mess each time. Lots of cleanup between grits to prevent contamination. 1" diameter backing pads seem fine for golfball-size spheres. And isn't spray paint all part of being cute? |
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Post by vegasjames on Jun 15, 2023 18:57:48 GMT -5
The stones are actually banded calcite, commonly mislabeled as "onyx", usually as "Mexican onyx" or "Pakistan onyx". Onyx is a completely unrelated stone though. Banded calcite is a calcium carbonate and comes on various colors. Onyx is a banded black and white or solid black chalcedony (cryptocrystalline to microcrystalline quartz, silicon dioxide). It often is associated with dark brown chalcedony, known as sard. Onyx is rare and expensive, which is why it is often faked by microfracturing sard. Then the sard is soaked in a sugar solution for a couple of months to a couple of years to allow the sugar to penetrate in to the stone.The sard is then soaked in sulfuric acid, which removes the hydrogen and oxygen from the sugar leaving behind the carbon making the stone appear black. Here are some examples of real onyx I have collected here in Southern Nevada.   |
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callmerob
starting to spend too much on rocks
I really like a dirt road
Member since September 2019
Posts: 143
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Post by callmerob on Jun 15, 2023 19:29:23 GMT -5
Thank you vegasjames. I like your native onyx. I had only a vague memory of onyx being black and gemmy, and I appreciate the other common names like banded calcite or Mexican onyx. This stuff is soft with small porosities. Thanks for the correct ID. Those are such cool stones! Are they found as float or an outcrop or ? Edit: And thanks for the chemistry lesson too. |
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Post by jasoninsd on Jun 15, 2023 20:40:43 GMT -5
callmerob - Nice "rework" on those spheres!! It looks like you radiated your chakra just right! LOL
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Post by vegasjames on Jun 15, 2023 21:56:10 GMT -5
Thank you vegasjames. I like your native onyx. I had only a vague memory of onyx being black and gemmy, and I appreciate the other common names like banded calcite or Mexican onyx. This stuff is soft with small porosities. Thanks for the correct ID. Those are such cool stones! Are they found as float or an outcrop or ? Edit: And thanks for the chemistry lesson too. Most the onyx was float, and I have found it in two locations in Southern Nevada. The larger piece I found in a rock pile where they were digging up the soil and sifting out the rock for road bedding. Then they discarded the leftover rock. I have been trying to locate where the stone originally washed down from as well as some other really cool stones I found in the same rock piles. No luck so far. Have found a lot of colorful chalcedonies, and opal in the area though. |
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callmerob
starting to spend too much on rocks
I really like a dirt road
Member since September 2019
Posts: 143
|
Post by callmerob on Jun 16, 2023 10:50:31 GMT -5
Most the onyx was float, and I have found it in two locations in Southern Nevada. The larger piece I found in a rock pile where they were digging up the soil and sifting out the rock for road bedding. Then they discarded the leftover rock. I have been trying to locate where the stone originally washed down from as well as some other really cool stones I found in the same rock piles. No luck so far. Have found a lot of colorful chalcedonies, and opal in the area though. Very interesting. Road bedding takes a lot of material. And trucks. So all one can do is follow the tire tracks. Out in the wild, one can follow the water courses to higher ground. The detective in me would like to be bouncing around the desert in an old truck looking for clues. Thanks for the info. |
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Post by vegasjames on Jun 18, 2023 0:11:50 GMT -5
Most the onyx was float, and I have found it in two locations in Southern Nevada. The larger piece I found in a rock pile where they were digging up the soil and sifting out the rock for road bedding. Then they discarded the leftover rock. I have been trying to locate where the stone originally washed down from as well as some other really cool stones I found in the same rock piles. No luck so far. Have found a lot of colorful chalcedonies, and opal in the area though. Very interesting. Road bedding takes a lot of material. And trucks. So all one can do is follow the tire tracks. Out in the wild, one can follow the water courses to higher ground. The detective in me would like to be bouncing around the desert in an old truck looking for clues. Thanks for the info. The dug at the same site, but there is a massive variety of different rocks that settled there.
I did follow the washes up quite a way, and searched all the length of the mountain feeding those washes, and checked two other nearby mountains. So far, no sign of the materials I was finding. So, may have come down in a flood from a greater distance. Unfortunately, most the land around there is military, so I am limited as to how far I can explore.
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callmerob
starting to spend too much on rocks
I really like a dirt road
Member since September 2019
Posts: 143
|
Post by callmerob on Jun 18, 2023 12:56:32 GMT -5
Good job with such a thorough search. Maybe you'll get lucky too. Yes there's so much military area. Sometimes they go off the reservation, as a friend found out when hiking a bare talus saddle. A fighter jet going about 400mph rolled inverted from one valley to the next. Barely cleared the saddle. Maybe some hotshot fighter pilot avoiding radar popup, a mere momentary ghost on the radar. Scared the hell out of everybody and the dog was not happy. And yes the military areas are not to be trifled with, but head's up on public lands too. Good luck and I hope you find more onyx. |
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