Partially tumbled Morgan Hill PJ

Holy Crap Mel! You got a perfect bulls-eye on that last one!

Larry: I'd say the main reason is the poppy jasper zones seem to be in areas of high seismic activity. Morgan Hill in particular, is right near the big San Andreas Fault that has lots of quakes. I'd say another reason is, like some of the Sierra Nevada Hornitos Poppy Jasper, much of the Morgan Hill material is from surface or near surface deposits and has been subject to a lot of weathering. I also think maybe a shortage of secondary silica deposition may be part of the problem. Stone Canyon is in an even more seismic area ( Parkfield is called the quake capitol of California) and stone canyon jasper, though very heavily fractured ( a breccia in fact), seems to often have most of the fracture lines completely sealed with agate or quartz making it a much more solid lapidary material. Morgan Hill Jasper though, is very prone to heavy fracturing with little secondary silica cementing the fracture lines.....Mel

Northshore: *L* I too have been subjected to mother nature's evil metamorphism. And we used to be so handsome too huh? *L*.....Mel

It was as suspected...rocking and rolling in CA gives this a whole new meaning....most of what I've seen in the Stone Canyon stuff was pretty solid in comparison to the Morgan Hill stuff even though they are reasonably close in location.
We have our own issues with weathering and thaw/freeze conditions for Ohio Flint...unless you go down below the frost line which is 3 feet, most pieces will be fractured and used for tumbling only. To get slab material you must go down below that frost line to have a shot at consistent slabbing stuff.
Has anyone gone down deeper to see if Morgan Hill stuff is there or is the surface stuff the only way this stuff is found??

gotta love the poppies.

douse with superglue, select a few for cabbing, keep tumbling the rest