Many mediocre Michigan rocks and two or three nice ones
Jan 6, 2021 23:32:52 GMT -5
Peruano, Drummond Island Rocks, and 12 more like this
Post by holajonathan on Jan 6, 2021 23:32:52 GMT -5
If you live in southeast Michigan like me, and you want to tumble rocks found on your own property, the possibilities are not great. This is not west Texas, or even the upper peninsula of Michigan.
But it's not all bad, either. Buried in heavy brown clay is a lot of glacial gravel containing quite a variety of interesting, although rarely spectacular rocks. Most do not tumble to a glassy shine, some undercut, and many have cracks that don't tumble away. Glacial gravel took a real beating! None of that means much to me, because there's nothing like tumbling rocks pulled out of my backyard!
These were all coarse tumbled in a Thumblers model B and finished in a Lot-O vibe. My fancy background is a piece of white oak firewood that, right after taking these photos, went into the stove.
#1: Quartz, quartzite, quartzish, and quartz-like:
#2: Microcrystalline fossils in limestone (I think?)
#3: Rounded perfectly by nature:
#4: Oolitic agates from glacial gravel. These have sandy spots and cracks so they don't polish perfectly. They are absolutely oolitic agates, just not the prettiest agates in the world. I will post a bunch more of these sometime soon. I've got at least one in the Lot-O right now that is quite interesting.
#5: Granite and metamorphic granite:
#6: Cracked up but nevertheless pretty metamorphic granite:
#7: Granite that is too pretty not to tumble, even if the black mineral undercuts. Looks better in person.
#8: Best one of this group:
#9: More metamorphic granite, quartzite, and at least one little jasper:
#10: My favorites from this group:
#11: Granites that actually tumbled pretty well... for granite
#12: Metamorphic granite with a little jasper (?) mixed in to at least one of two.
#13: My favorite from this group. Cracks go all the way through, so I just left them.
#14: I think the top two are chert. The bottom might be mudstone? The top two are very, very shiny. My cell phone camera is intent on hiding that fact.
#15: I think these are all basalt or basalt based granite-like something? The basalt does not get all that shiny but some of the inclusions are minerals that get very shiny, which makes for an interesting contrast within the same rock.
#16: My favorite from this group. The black little inclusions and what appear to be feldspar are quite shiny. The base rock is not very shiny.
#17: My second favorite rock in this post. Chert, I think. It has a nice shine, and by grinding out pits and cracks, I inadvertently created patterns that did not exist when I pulled it out of the ground. What look like cracks are actually very solid, healed fractures.
#18: My favorite of this post. I don't know what the green rock is, but it polished pretty well. I don't know what the cream colored mineral is either, but it has more of a luster than a shine, almost like a giant pearl. The best part is the gold band between the two. I wish I could find about 100 like this. I'll keep digging.
If you think my IDs of the rocks are wrong, you're probably right. Please correct me.
But it's not all bad, either. Buried in heavy brown clay is a lot of glacial gravel containing quite a variety of interesting, although rarely spectacular rocks. Most do not tumble to a glassy shine, some undercut, and many have cracks that don't tumble away. Glacial gravel took a real beating! None of that means much to me, because there's nothing like tumbling rocks pulled out of my backyard!
These were all coarse tumbled in a Thumblers model B and finished in a Lot-O vibe. My fancy background is a piece of white oak firewood that, right after taking these photos, went into the stove.
#1: Quartz, quartzite, quartzish, and quartz-like:
#2: Microcrystalline fossils in limestone (I think?)
#3: Rounded perfectly by nature:
#4: Oolitic agates from glacial gravel. These have sandy spots and cracks so they don't polish perfectly. They are absolutely oolitic agates, just not the prettiest agates in the world. I will post a bunch more of these sometime soon. I've got at least one in the Lot-O right now that is quite interesting.
#5: Granite and metamorphic granite:
#6: Cracked up but nevertheless pretty metamorphic granite:
#7: Granite that is too pretty not to tumble, even if the black mineral undercuts. Looks better in person.
#8: Best one of this group:
#9: More metamorphic granite, quartzite, and at least one little jasper:
#10: My favorites from this group:
#11: Granites that actually tumbled pretty well... for granite
#12: Metamorphic granite with a little jasper (?) mixed in to at least one of two.
#13: My favorite from this group. Cracks go all the way through, so I just left them.
#14: I think the top two are chert. The bottom might be mudstone? The top two are very, very shiny. My cell phone camera is intent on hiding that fact.
#15: I think these are all basalt or basalt based granite-like something? The basalt does not get all that shiny but some of the inclusions are minerals that get very shiny, which makes for an interesting contrast within the same rock.
#16: My favorite from this group. The black little inclusions and what appear to be feldspar are quite shiny. The base rock is not very shiny.
#17: My second favorite rock in this post. Chert, I think. It has a nice shine, and by grinding out pits and cracks, I inadvertently created patterns that did not exist when I pulled it out of the ground. What look like cracks are actually very solid, healed fractures.
#18: My favorite of this post. I don't know what the green rock is, but it polished pretty well. I don't know what the cream colored mineral is either, but it has more of a luster than a shine, almost like a giant pearl. The best part is the gold band between the two. I wish I could find about 100 like this. I'll keep digging.
If you think my IDs of the rocks are wrong, you're probably right. Please correct me.
