churross
off to a rocking start
Member since March 2008
Posts: 15
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Post by churross on Jul 20, 2008 21:27:00 GMT -5
My latest flavor has been all of the green stones that more or less pass as jade, both locating and tumbling. Being in California, I am close to 8-10 or so locations for either jadeite, nephrite, vesuvianite, idocrase, grossularite, actinolite, dioptase, or various combinations. I'm combining old geographic information with google and other topo maps (I spent two hours scouring the mountains of Myanmar the other day for open pit jadeite), then using the information to plan rough material gathering trips. Here is an example of a topo map that looks quite promising for jade:  I wondered if others had used this old and new technology mix for their expeditions and, throwing in GPS, how state of the art rockhounding has become. |
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1rockhound
spending too much on rocks
Member since July 2008
Posts: 286
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Post by 1rockhound on Jul 21, 2008 0:56:53 GMT -5
I use old USGS survey reports and google earth to refine the search area. You can find a lot of useful info in old survey reports. Also another great tool is Geocommunicator.gov it has all of the past and present mining claims in the country and much much more. It is not the most user friendly site though.
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chassroc
Cave Dweller 
Rocks are abundant when you have rocktumblinghobby pals
Member since January 2005
Posts: 3,586
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Post by chassroc on Jul 21, 2008 12:05:46 GMT -5
Interesting Topo map, though obviously not from USGS, looks more like bas-rlief to me.
csroc
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huffstuff
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since August 2007
Posts: 1,222
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Post by huffstuff on Jul 23, 2008 7:59:20 GMT -5
Good one!
;D ;D ;D
Amy
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churross
off to a rocking start
Member since March 2008
Posts: 15
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Post by churross on Jul 23, 2008 22:12:29 GMT -5
The USGS maps are real nice, when you add google earth you can eliminate a lot of looking around. Also I like the rockhounding books, the mindat site which lists claims old and new, as well as older prospecting books. It turns out that mineral spots IDed in the 1850-1940 ranges have dropped out of modern books and internet references. A little detective work and digging for older titles, combined with internet geo data can lead to some nice finds.
Sorry about the....uh...topo map. I was doing some macro experimenting and couldn't help noticing the similarities to the areas I had been looking for on the maps.
I'd have filed this under 'location;, but it's really about the methodology of self-gathering great rocks for tumbling or lap work.
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