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Post by Tonyterner on May 8, 2012 8:15:32 GMT -5
Looks like my company will be sending me to El Centro CA for a week sometime soon. Are there any members here that live near there? Any rock hounding near by? I'll be spending my days hiking the electric transmission lines but I expect I'll have enough energy left over to take an evening rockhounding trip or two.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Member since January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on May 9, 2012 20:43:43 GMT -5
The Pala pegmatite area is not too far.
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Post by jakesrocks on May 9, 2012 21:10:26 GMT -5
Used to be some collecting sites just above the border. Don't know if they're safe anymore. What with the illegals and drug runners.
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Post by Tonyterner on May 10, 2012 18:24:36 GMT -5
I'll walking down a 18 mile path along the border following a transmission line. Maybe I'll stumble across something along the way.
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Post by jakesrocks on May 10, 2012 18:40:23 GMT -5
I'll check my older books, and see if I can get locations for you.
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Post by jakesrocks on May 10, 2012 19:36:32 GMT -5
OK, here's what I found in an old 1976 book. If you take interstate 8 to Ocotillo, go north about 1 mile to Imperial Hwy. If you go straight north on Shell Canyon Rd. about 4.6 miles and search the ridges, You'll find marine fossils. If you turn west on Imperial Hwy about 7 miles, just as you cross into San Diego county there is what they call specimen wood in and beyond the hills.
If you go west of El Centro on interstate 8 for 13 miles, take the Dunaway turnoff. Under the turnoff a short distance south you'll hit a dirt road heading S.W. Follow that for 1.6 miles and turn N. on another dirt road which will turn S.W. At 1.1 miles turn S. on another dirt road for 2.2 miles. You'll come too a dry wash. Across the dry wash .4 miles there will be another dirt road heading S.E. Follow that for .2 miles and park. By walking E. you'll find marine fossils, concretions and gypsum crystals.
Hope that helps a little. Not sure if those areas are still open. I haven't been to them in many years. ---- Don
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Post by Woodyrock on May 14, 2012 1:35:37 GMT -5
Tony:
I was stationed at the NASA base at El Centro in the sixties. Not much good material really close by, except for for some nice wood at Plaster City............scarce in the sixties. About fifty miles east in the Cargo Muchacos Mountains there is pretty good collecting for kyanite, agate, roses, jaspers, and pet palm. A better short road trip would be to the Midway Well area on route 78.
Woody
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Post by Tonyterner on May 14, 2012 9:18:57 GMT -5
Thanks all. I think I'll be out there next week but just for one day. I'm hoping to get back for a week in early June.
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