Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on May 2, 2024 16:50:43 GMT -5
*LOL* Goldfinder: One of our members drove like 20 hours straight to my place in Texas and got most all my Hornitos rough and lots of other stuff. He pretty much had a pickup load. The rest I sold off or gave away before I left California for Texas as it was just too much to move. Almost made me cry when I had to give away a huge quantity of Hornitos Brecciated jasper and Cosmos Jasper. Of course, I still cry about the big boulders of Stone Canyon type jasper from Big Sandy Creek and Creston that stayed in my old yard too. Some of those weighed like 90 pounds and had to be carried out of the creek on my back. Man, those were the good old hounding days!
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on May 2, 2024 16:40:21 GMT -5
Goldfinder: When you make the turn on the dirt road in and start going south paralleling the terraces to your right towards Trumbells old claims and Dream Ranch West you will cross several dry creek beds running sort of east and west. The first one, that had a wet creek in the bottom sometimes, has several small pits I dug in its north bank sort of below an outcrop of bull quartz that shows up nice and white. You should see jasper stringers in some of the boulders near the bottom. Those pits yielded the Firefly Jasper and some awesome red orange poppy. The second main ravine you come to, a smaller one, had two or three small pits maybe fifty yards or so north of the ravine and maybe 75 yards west of the dirt road. The larger of the two pits, the one furthest west, had the ocean jasper looking material next to a vein of dense cocoa colored poppies. My buddy and I only dug that one maybe three feet or less deep. All over that terrace above the ravine we also found brecciated and a dot filled red jasper as float. Actually though, all those terraces contain float, though I have no idea how much the big fire changed how it looks now. We actually had to crawl though massive thickets of buckbrush and manzanita when we were hounding.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on May 2, 2024 16:16:56 GMT -5
Dang! That stuff really pops. Great color and pattern!
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 30, 2024 14:55:54 GMT -5
goldfinder: Glad some of my info has helped you score some material. There are really a lot of deposits scattered in the area, but as you know, it's rough country and difficult to explore. The site we found that had me the most nervous was the pit we called the " stinky horse hole" because a local was nice enough to dump his dead horse in the pit we were digging, and the horse carcass was clearly attracting bears. Digging while looking over your shoulder can be kind of nerve wracking, *L*
I was told, the poppy in this area is in highly altered Jurassic seabed deposits and formed as spherules in marine ooze. I did find an example on our own ranch that had loosely packed little spheres with no silica filling between them. That being said, it leaves me very confused because I found a lot of poppy lenses and veins in situ. So, did this ooze fill in cracks and voids in harder andesite looking rock while in the ocean floor? It further confuses me that this jasper often has little inclusions of gold bearing sulfides which must have flowed into the voids too. One thing for certain, the orbicular jaspers at this location have seen a lot of weird seismic activity and then been resealed, as there is Hornitos Brecciated Jasper in the area ( some of this has orbs too) and many poppy examples show significant distortion, offsetting or blurring of the patterns or even dissolving some of the poppies. The area shows a lot of parallels to the Stone Canyon Jasper ( it sometimes has orbs too) and to the jaspers of Big Sandy Creek near FT. Hunter Legget. Big Sandy, along with Stone Canyon type breccias had some very weird poppy types too. I left a boulder in my Ojai yard that was solid like Hornitos ( Hunters Valley) stuff and composed of orbs in yellow, green and red that were so tightly packed that you had to look close to see they were orbs. Different color palette but otherwise really like some of the Hornitos stuff. One pit we found at Hunters Valley had material that though, pretty fractured, strongly resembled Ocean Jasper. Without a doubt, the most interesting area I've ever hounded.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 29, 2024 22:23:20 GMT -5
Gary, I had poison oak so bad the nurses took me around to show me to medical students. It was hard to convince myself it was worth it. *L*
Additional note: If digging into the side of a hill, make sure and note what is above you on the hill*L*. I did not get near any poison oak plants or leaves but did not consider that the roots from a poison oak thicket go a long distance underground and the juice from the roots is apparently very nasty.
Rockbrain, Since we owned a ranch there for about 15 years I got to know most my neighbors and had access to many private properties. Much of the poppy jasper is unfortunately on private ranchland. There are many sites on BLM land too, but it took me like eight years of looking to locate them after first finding deposits on our own place and I had help from a couple of other hunters. My buddy's dog actually found the original old pits for us. One was flooded and the doggy got hot and went swimming. My buddy found the dog and stumbled upon the original digs in the brush.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 29, 2024 14:57:51 GMT -5
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 29, 2024 14:01:11 GMT -5
Howdy folks,
OK freaking flickr seems to have changed posting methods yet again. Can anyone tell a step by step on ho I can get the "BB code" from flickr to post an individual pic to RTH from flickr. Only seems to give me a link to connect all my flickr album to RTH, not individual pics. Thanks....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 29, 2024 12:49:08 GMT -5
Hmm. Thought I previously posted something on this. I know exactly what vein that material came from. Quite a ways from the old Hornitos jasper sites down canyon, further up Hunters Valley road right near our old ranch. Doctor built a home right on top of it about 16 years ago. Small orb poppy that runs into what I called the strawberry jasper vein. Right acroos the road from the Cosmos Jasper site which also has a new home on it. Vein was mostly about 3-4 inches thick showing that pattern but the entire vein was much thicker. Vein was very variable and had lots of different patterns and very solid. I still have about a 75# hunk in my rock garden here in Texas taken from where the vein of that nice stuff you've cabbed is only an inch or so thick. After all the work I spent digging it out, you know I couldn't leave it behind. *L*. Only stuff with that pattern I found in all my poppy hunting in the area. Beautiful job with the cab!
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 29, 2024 12:26:30 GMT -5
Wow, very nice old timey material. Looks like it had aragonite pseudomorphs on top that kind of dissolved away.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 22, 2024 18:07:34 GMT -5
I've always thought Prairie agates are very underrated. Interesting patterns in very hard agate. Those are beautiful examples.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Mar 26, 2024 15:54:06 GMT -5
Wow! Awesome cabs, even if from as cabbing master. The polish is outstanding!
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Mar 21, 2024 17:59:08 GMT -5
Howdy, Just go a couple of hours southeast of San Antone to a triangle drawn between George West Texas, Simmons City and Three Rivers. Miles and miles of gravel and dirt roads in the area oilfields that make good roadside collecting for petwood jasper, agate, limb casts etc. Hunt roadside ditches but get you a gem scoop so you don't have to reach into the foliage. Some of the largest rattlers I've ever seen in that thornbrush country. Google the are first to see what roads dirt are still or have good roadsides because lately they are topping a lot of the roads with caliche which tends to cover the good stuff.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Mar 21, 2024 17:49:47 GMT -5
Wow, really neat find. I've only found banded specimens like that down near George West, Three Rivers, the Rio grande/ Uvalde gravels etc. I'm near Kerrville and except for the occasional geode in limestone or various banded cherts, no real banded agate at all I've seen. That being said I do find occasional hunks of pet wood and those can be casts so there is some potential for banded agate. Also, I suppose we have to remember that in ancient times Texas was home to huge rivers that could have transported material from a long way away. What surprises me is your specimen is quite rough which would seem to imply it was not washed a long distance by water but rather from a source relatively close by.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Mar 4, 2024 17:03:59 GMT -5
That second pictured example is what we call "Pocket Rot Wood " in Texas. Quite a bit found in the George West area. Kind of resembles dino bone but it is actually a replacement of partially decomposed pet wood. There is another similar type that is very vuggy often with tiny crystals in the vugs, because the holes are not totally silica filled, that some call Ghost Wood. It's not actually palm or bog. but most likely some kind of conifer.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 26, 2024 17:43:53 GMT -5
Not surprising about the claim as I sold our ranch and moved to Texas 16 years ago so my info is dated.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 12, 2024 17:04:37 GMT -5
Lots of similar stuff from the Rio Grande gravel deposits too. I just call it brecciated agate. Lots of puddingstone type conglomerates in the Rio Grande rocks too but rather than angular patterns like the breccia, those are composed mostly of more rounded quartz, and jasper pebbles sealed together by agate. Both types tend to be very hard material and polish well.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Feb 12, 2024 16:55:32 GMT -5
I had a ranch in Hunters Valley which is the actual location for Hornitos Jasper. I collected it for years before I moved to Texas. Nowhere near the Morgan Hill area in the coast ranges. The jasper occurs all over the place in the in foothills of the MT. Williams range ( Sierra foothills) but the best areas my buddy and I found were NNW of Dream Ranch West off Detwiler Rd. Robin Trumbell has my best spots under claim last I heard but there are many areas not under claim on BLM land. Some of my best spots though, were all on private property. Our ranch had an old goldmine road crossing the hillside and the road was lined by big boulders with poppy jasper nodules in situ. I just got too dang old to hard rock mine those boulders and remove the nodules. Was much easier hunting n the north part of hunters Valley between Hunters Valley Rd and Detwiler RD.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 8, 2024 17:12:42 GMT -5
Very nice! We have the same type material on our ranch here in Gillespie County. It does make a fun tumble.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Jan 2, 2024 14:46:25 GMT -5
Looks like the black jade from the Victorville, CA location near the Verde Antique marble location.
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,466
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Post by Sabre52 on Nov 20, 2023 16:29:35 GMT -5
What a variety! Absolutely stunning!
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