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Post by helens on Jan 12, 2013 20:19:38 GMT -5
For the past year, I've been obsessing over rocks. Living in Florida, I knew we had no rocks, making the obsession worse. I wondered WHY Florida had a state rock (agatized coral), if it was so rare that you couldn't get any because all the sites for it are picked clean or inaccessible. A few weeks ago, I read JamesP's threads here, and thought... wow... maybe they aren't all gone!! James made a suggestion, and this weekend, we decided to go check it out. Well heck!!! WE FOUND SOME ROCKS!!! My first rockhunting trip (where we actually got some!!). JamesP, you are just wonderful!!!! Thank you for sharing your information so generously, and making it possible for us to actually experience rockhounding!!! We had so much fun, but HOLY CRAP what a workout:)! I got bug eaten and lost all my fingernails, wrecked my clothes, got myself and my car interior covered with mud, but damned, that was GREAT!! LOL! I'm not sure hubby is ready to do it again anytime soon, but that's only because he got to do all the rock porting:P. hehe. Unfortunately, there was no way to take pix of where we were... we had to climb/fall down about 15' of mud slick (getting down was easy, getting back up was really hard, the mud was wet, SLICK, and a 15' vertical climb, we threw the rocks ahead, which is why we didn't get many 80 lb rocks, you can only throw so many 80 lb rocks up a 15' incline before the next one falls on your head from muscle fatigue), and carefully wade/balance along a 6" muddly ledge to get to individual coral partially submerged, disturbing 2 large wasp mud installations, and clouds of mosquitoes. So I left the camera in the car. If not for hubby bravely making many trips back, around the angry wasps he had to actually step over each time (we did not get even 1 sting!) I would have come home with... um... 2 rocks:P (fossil coral is HEAVY!!!). As it was... we came back with this, most of which was lugged only about 1/8 of a mile back to the car, but a climb all the way, and several BIG roughly 80 lb (**correction: hubby said the big ones weighted 30-40 lbs, not 80... they felt like a bag of salt to me, but I wasn't throwing em:P) pieces I forgot to take pix of:  This piece was probably left behind by James from his last excursion there, it was already broken, but told us we were looking at the right rocks:  Here's more bucket contents:        WOOOHHOOOOO!!! How neat is that!!!! We did not clean out the area, but the rocks were not just laying around, they are buried in the mud, and you have to dig them out. Also, when you got some of them out, it disturbed clouds of wasps (it was a bit chilly, so we were both pretty covered up)... maybe they stung us and we didn't notice through the clothes, but we didn't get nailed in the face or hands, so it was all good:P. I have no idea how hard rockhounding normally is, but to do what we did, you have to be in reasonably good shape and be able to balance, climb and jump, while lugging a bucket, hammer and hubby was lugging a gigantic 5' long boulder-mover prybar thing. James must be in rediculous good shape to do it as regularly as he does!! I think I might have weenied out if I didn't drag hubby all the way out there already:P. We get home, covered in baked on mud all over... and find... James had sent me a box of chips/chunks to test in the kiln!!! I do not have to risk cutting a vein to test, thanks to his thoughtfulness:)!! So this is what I got!!! MFRB of coral chunks!!  With a couple of really gorgeous specimens!!! Little blue 'star' polyps!!  A blueish coral 'limb cast':  So I pulled out the whitest pieces in his 'chips' (ALL of which have some form of star polyp castings), shot them, and these are in the kiln as I type.  They are set to a VERY slow up speed and a VERY slow cooldown, will take at least 24 hours to complete, but I'm pretty sure the coral won't crack going up that slowly. I may be getting carried away with the temperature rise, since I know that it doesn't take a camp fire 10 hours to reach top temp, but for the first batch, I want to see if we can get optimum color without damage, and can tweak the time/temp more in future batches. Cooldown may not be complete tomorrow even, but will post pix when it's done. Then, I'll move on to the other 3 coral types you sent. Thanks again James, for all the help!!! Hope I can help you a bit too with the testing. I WILL find optimum color/temp for you:). |
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bhiatt
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Post by bhiatt on Jan 12, 2013 20:33:22 GMT -5
I agree, Jamesp ROCKS! Great haul. Im looking forward to seeing what they look like after the heating process.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2013 22:42:40 GMT -5
Jim is a peach.
Yes, that was a Georgia joke....
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jan 13, 2013 8:14:05 GMT -5
My mother always said i was an angel.Thankyou Brad and Scott.Helen-you have got to calm down girl.
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Post by helens on Jan 13, 2013 14:35:04 GMT -5
LOL! It's an exciting subject James:). I knew that coral collecting in Florida would be no easy task unless you could find a construction site or had a boat. We learned a ton from this experience, the most valuable being that it's one thing to go hiking down a 15' ravine, it's another to haul tools and heavy rocks out of it!! I asked hubby what the prybar was called, he said it's a burque bar, which weighted a TON... but it was a darn good thing we brought it!!
Anyway, since no one else is interested in the experiment, will keep you updated in pms:).
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jan 13, 2013 15:01:40 GMT -5
The clay at that location is incredible.We would hide a steel pipe down there to put on the burque bar to make it even longer.We bent one that was 4.5-5 feet long.That's not average.And areas on the bottom of the Withlacoochee has a blue/gray clay that can also bend a pry bar on a soft ball sized coral.A lot of coral is easy to get.I wish i could find the other ditch that has coral about a mile or two from where you were at.It ran parallel to the sand road but was deeper down.And if you looked into the abandonded orange grove behind it you can see a pile of giant coral heads the farmer must have piled there.It was a classic deep ditched orange grove with coral spread all around the ditches.It may have houses sitting on the site now.New construction can be hot for unearthed coral.Mr Burke used to see digging aroud Tampa and get that coral-his fav was finger coral-he said it was his best seller.I have never seen it.
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Post by tntmom on Jan 13, 2013 15:27:05 GMT -5
I'M INTERESTED!!!!!! Just found this though. Speaking of pm's I've been completely wrapped up in those for a couple of days.
Your hounding trip looks so cool! I'm so glad you found a spot in FL with James' help, WHOOHOO! I'm anxious to see the colors you get too from James' box!
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Post by helens on Jan 13, 2013 15:42:21 GMT -5
Deeper down?! Are you kidding? The spot we were at was darn hard to get out of as it was! LOL! Are you sending us on Japanese Ninja Warrior style obstacle courses?! When I got home, I thought, dang, I need to practice doing pull ups more, I'm clearly not in good enough physical shape! O.o. I wish we lived closer to that area... it's still a 2 hour drive back, wearing dried mud. I kept imagining a cop pulling us over and wondering what grave we clawed ourselves out of (ok, me anyway, hubby wasn't so messy - HE had the burque bar)... I even managed to get mud in my hair. Next time we bring GLOVES!!! Gosh it was fun tho, we want to go again soon, but we'll see if we can find a different spot (LESS hard to get out of, not more!  )  . |
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Fossilman
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Post by Fossilman on Jan 13, 2013 16:12:42 GMT -5
Its great to have friends on this forum to share information to rockhounding!!!!!!
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Post by helens on Jan 13, 2013 16:58:12 GMT -5
Thanks Krystee, first experiment was a bit of a flop, I didn't cook long enough apparently, so going for round 2 now:).
Fossilman, I agree!! And James is wonderful, even if he does think it's hilarious sending us to an obstacle course to find a few rocks:P, hehe. He's even got my husband a bit more interested in rockhounding, it reminded him of being in the marine corps (bugs, mud, climbing:P). I'm not quite built so rugged, but since I'm doing the writing, I can do the whining!! Ok ok, I'm still marveling that we did that, and that James does that all the time!!!
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Post by helens on Jan 14, 2013 1:58:56 GMT -5
More pix:)! Here's one of the big ones we brought back. I say it's 80 lbs, hubby says it's 40. It's too big to weigh, or at least I'm not lugging it to the scale, and about 13" across.  And he cut it in 1/2 with that saw, but the littler half broke:  And here it is, we think it might be hollow behind the little hole on the left:  Here's how the cooked pieces came out of the kiln... pinker on the tips, but otherwise not very different:  So the same pieces went back in the kiln to cook longer (trying to get them fully pink). This time, I decided to see if these factors made a difference. 1. sopping wet mud from the bottom of the bucket. 2. wrapped in aluminum foil (insulation). 3. just plain.  I added these on top, James said they were from 4 different locations:  And here's the mess inside the kiln from the top door (there was so much water in the mud, it's pooling at the top):  It's all cooking... from my kiln window, I can see that the mud had mostly dried after a few hours. So far so good... I don't think any of them have exploded yet:). |
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jan 14, 2013 7:15:19 GMT -5
I like that big coral.Nice find.Big pieces like that are normally of poor quality.Amazing that you guys split that monster w/that OSHA not acceptable grinder:>Bet someone was white dust person after that cut was made.Glad i am not a pretty rock in your
neighborhood!
Helen,those pink tips are close to the rind or outside of the coral head.Look at the large coral you guys split.Do you see the dark orange/brown rind-that is got a lot of metals/minerals that will change color most.You see,i chipped off the rind and sent you the junk on the inside.I kept about 5 pounds of rind off of that particular coral,and sent you the center-junk-what are freinds for.You said something about sawing.I have a big saw but it is easier and faster to remove the rind w/hammer.Properly sized chips can still be cabbed/cut/modified,but the cutter gets to work in the color change zone-the rind.
Please continue to cook mud if you so desire.It took a looooong time to put the color in that coral.Let's say the man above helped on that one.Cooking in sand is only for temp stablization.In your well insulated kiln you could probably ramp up and ramp down and maintain very steady temp gradient without sand.My wive's oven does not have a controller-just me.So i start in the morning,get to full temp for 4 hours by midnite and turn it off.12 hours later it is still too hot to dip your fingers in the sand.But that was 12 hours i did not have to burn electricity ramping down.So the sand holds the heat for looong time.Actually,your kiln may not need sand either.Bet it is super insulated,you could probably turn it off at midnite and the temp would drop very slowly-just no faster than 100 per 2 hours-be careful opening in the morning and shocking your whole load though.If i leave the door closed on her oven,it takes 2 days to cool down!I open it inthe morning and 4 hours later i might be able to remove the coral.I remove a little prematurelywith leather gloves and look at each piece for fractures thru strong light.I can dampen the glove slightly and cool the coral from like 200-230 and snap the rock at the fracture.The fractures do not handle that quick little cool down.
Most of the brown,yellow,orange color is probably iron compounds.And iron likes to change towards red under heat.Like yellow goes to orange and orange to red/rust and brown to dark red/rust.The center of that big head should turn orange and the rind turn red/rust.The cool thing about that southern zone coral is that it has color all the way thru.My river stuff up here is often colored only in the rind.Lucky you.So under that situation i may not have sent you any coral cause the inside would be pretty too:>But,the tips changing color was classic and shows how deceptive color changes are.
Always beware,cooking big pieces is a lot trickier.Like the knappers cook whole heads-that takes a lot more experience and has higher failure rate.
Great post Helen.Hope to see today's load-no short cuts..
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jan 14, 2013 7:29:47 GMT -5
Gosh Helen,i should not post these babies so close to your workmanship.Must have been an accident   Guess what my wife calls me LLJA (long legged jack) |
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jan 14, 2013 7:56:03 GMT -5
Oh,i forgot to mention,these are the parts i kept:> Attachments:
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Post by helens on Jan 14, 2013 12:50:17 GMT -5
Well of course yours are going to be nicer, James:P. You're the teacher, I'm the apprentice:P. Those are GORGEOUS, just stunning. Kiln's done... pix coming soon:). The colors on the whites didn't change much, not much pinker:(. However, the other pieces did. They turned pale lavender and red, at the edges, exactly as you said. I think you're right, the colors are from the iron or minerals in the water, so soaked into the rind most, but the center does take color, just not as much, and the color follows the rind iron. There was no notable difference between the mud packed ones, the aluminum foil ones and the loose in kiln ones. I think one broke apart, because there are a few small shards in the kiln, but most are completely intact. One observation, after coming out, they look REALLY dry... almost chalky. They don't feel chalky, they just look like chalk. I'm wondering if these are fully agatized, but coral skeletons are mostly calcium/limestone anyway. They look brittle, but they're not. Yours are fantastic, but you know what you're doing I wanted to add... I'm just intellectually curious. This is a labor of love and obsession, bottom line is, it's hard, dirty and incredibly time-consuming. I used to wonder WHY Florida coral cost so much more than other rare rocks. Now I know. The amount of effort and risk is enormous... where we went was just hard to get to, but boating on small Florida waterways can be challenging to dangerous, we had a boat not long ago ourselves. I like to see for myself, and after seeing, I have even more respect for people like James and JC!! |
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bhiatt
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Post by bhiatt on Jan 14, 2013 15:12:03 GMT -5
great thread.....
Helen, that big piece hubby cut for you is great looking. Id be excited if I found that.
JamesP your buckets of coral look like buckets of apples. Very cool looking. I might just turn that photo into my screen saver.
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jamesp
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Post by jamesp on Jan 14, 2013 15:19:41 GMT -5
I like finding rocks so i can photo them.That is a major compliment to me Brad.Thanks
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carloscinco
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Post by carloscinco on Jan 14, 2013 20:05:35 GMT -5
Great Haul there Helen! It's great and sharing of James to put you on the scent of that great coral.
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Post by helens on Jan 14, 2013 22:23:15 GMT -5
Thanks!!! I thought I might help James out with some cook timing, but I'm not finding anything new with the kiln that he didn't already find:). But here's the end of the 'series'. Out of the kiln, no big difference in the whites that were put through a 2nd time. The open kiln ones changed as much as the aluminum foil wrapped and clay baked ones. Clay baking was a bad idea, it was HARD to get that clay off the rocks in the tin, and all it did was may the buried coral dirty. Out of the kiln- dry  Wet:  I tested them for fractures, took 1 of each apparent color type. This is the very small but intense red one in the middle, I just 'skinned' it since the color was so close to the coral skin (james has lots of these, it cabs beautifully, but this is wet, not polished - look at that color and texture tho!):  This is from the first group of white ones that pinked at the corners (didn't grind smooth except for the bottom pink edge, since I'm going to tumble polish anyway):  This is the pale purple one - I had several, so just grabbed a random one - incredibly... this polishes up buttery like a really fine agate, and you can feel that it's going to take a translucent liquidy shine:  Now the above is all of 5 total minutes on the grinding wheel. I have a feeling they're going to be something neat when finished and final polished. James... from a cabbing perspective, these are VERY VERY high quality stones... and worth money!! |
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rockingthenorth
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Post by rockingthenorth on Jan 14, 2013 22:45:55 GMT -5
glad you got to go on a hounding trip that paid up. Those coral are awesome looking. and the big one is cool
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