Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on May 14, 2018 14:09:12 GMT -5
Nah. Prairies and Fairburns are both from sedimentary deposits and both chemically the same I suppose, but Fairburns, like Teepees and Dryheads are true banded fortification agates. Prairies are just cherts with highly variable complex bandings, orbs, blotches, scenes etc. I've seen prairies with a touch of fortifications but not the complex banding of real Fairburns.
Brenda is kind of like Woodward in Texas, Nodular agate and jasper agates from igneous formations in all kinds of patterns. Lots of moss, plume, orbs etc with fortificatins sometimes, but very unlike the Fairburn beds in origin and types if ya really look at them.....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on May 14, 2018 13:49:56 GMT -5
One of the two varieties of Paisley Plume Agate from down in the Palo Verde Mtns. Rare stuff indeed.....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on May 7, 2018 8:53:34 GMT -5
My doggie and best buddy is gone now, but yep, he slept on the bed with me. Only bad thing was, he had a short tail and liked to sleep with his tail near my nose. Not really a pleasant sight to wake up to, and I had to make dang sure not to feed him any food what gave him gas *L*.....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on May 6, 2018 15:33:19 GMT -5
Great shot! This being Texas, we too have a lot of cacti. Heck I have cactus plants come up in my lawn and they even grow on tree stumps here. Amazing how many insect species utilize the flowers. My favorites here are the flower scarab beetles. Many different types and markings and they roll around in the pollen like little clowns. One actually is a bee mimic that they call the bumble bee scarab....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on May 6, 2018 15:27:48 GMT -5
We type back and forth all the time. He is a pretty busy guy though with a lot of hobbies. Maybe he's having to rearrange all his tons of rocks to keep his house from falling into a sinkhole. He's still into rocks big time, that's for sure.....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on May 2, 2018 21:59:53 GMT -5
My guess would be Horse Canyon for the Bull Canyon slab. Excellent deal on the Hornitos slab too.....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 27, 2018 13:52:09 GMT -5
Every time I see those marbles I smile. When I was a kid and new to rocks my dad had his old Chevy wagon break down ( as usual) somewhere on the desert. Left me to hound while he went to town for a part and I was surprised to find a deposit of those marbles in a nearby road cut. Me being a kid and all, my first introduction to rocks had of course been those round sparkly geodes, and lo and behold, I figured with all those neato round rocks I had hit a geode bonanza. So, by the time pop returned with the part and started working on the wagon, I was sitting on the ground near the car with a veritable pile of what I thought were geodes. Figured I'd spend my time waiting for him by cracking all them nice geodes to see the pretty crystal centers. Man, I laid one of those marbles down and proceeded to take me a fine swing with my rock hammer, smacked that sucker and it shot off like a friggin cannon ball and put a nice round dent in the side of the wagon right near my pop's noggin. I promptly found out three things 1. Moqui marbles are not geodes! 2. Moqui Marbles do not break open to reveal pretty crystals but do make fine ironstone projectiles when given the proper impetus. and 3. My pop did not have a well developed sense of humor and could outrun me *L*. Moral of the story. Do not take a hammer to Moqui Marbles *L*....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 23, 2018 23:09:42 GMT -5
Dave, I've been to Sharktooth Hill ( before it became a controlled fee dig) and other Bako sharktooth sites many times and the best time to go is when it is wet. You get Valley Fever when you stir up dust while digging and aspirate the spores in the dust. When it's wet, no dust is generated so you do not inhale spores. My digging buddy worked with me a bunch of times without catching it and then did catch it bad in Porterville when a consturction site filled the air with spores one summer. He was misdiagnosed and almost died from it. Bad stuff. We wore dust masks when digging even when it was not real dry.....Mel
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Sabre52
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Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 22, 2018 23:35:28 GMT -5
I'm not an expert but that sort of Mako existed with a lot of small whales during the Miocene about 21 million years ago. That's the period of the Sharktooth Hill deposits.....Mel
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Sabre52
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Member since August 2005
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 22, 2018 21:39:11 GMT -5
It looks like a small whale vertebrae to me too. At Sharktooth Hill by Bakersfield, we used to find very similar fossils where sharkteeth were often fused to whale bone fossils by mineral deposits. That looks very like the tip of a Mako shark tooth me too. I have many similar examples in my collection.....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 17, 2018 7:35:25 GMT -5
*LOL* Once you get him out there he will find there's more to a rock outing than just rocks, scenery, wild flowers, critters etc. Very rewarding type of outing in many ways....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 17, 2018 7:32:48 GMT -5
Yep, I'm with Mark. Low grade crazy lace...Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 17, 2018 7:30:28 GMT -5
Wow, that's a beauty and what an effort to get it home!
Years ago, while rock hounding by myself, I found a huge round boulder deep in a ravine at Lavic. Really wanted it for the wife's rock garden as it was way too big for my saw. Burning hot and windy but I dug it out. Only thing was, try as I might, every time I'd get it almost out of the deep ravine, I'd lose hold of it and it would roll all the way back down the hill. After almost getting heat stroke, I finally gave up and decided I'd come back for it later when I had two people. I did and it was gone *sigh*. Someone got themselves a good'un for the yard for sure. Gives one a good appreciation for your persistence and success....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 14, 2018 12:13:01 GMT -5
It's also interesting how many types of blanks there are too, each probably destined for different sorts of tools. Some are pointed bifaces like the one I pictured. Others run smaller, four inches or so and are thinner biface rounds or ovals and another type is sort of a flat ended oval of really large size. I'm talking eight inches to a foot or so long and an inch or more thick. I find these preform type blanks fascinating and man it would be cool to have seen how each form was utilized. The only ones that definitely point to a purpose are ovals with the cortex left intact at one end to form a handle. I'm sure those were destined to become the unique, sharktooth looking Kerr knives as those always have intact cortex to serve as a firm grip when using the knife for butchering.....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 14, 2018 8:32:07 GMT -5
Howdy folks, The hill we own across form our house has an old Amerind flint/chert quarry site where the Amerinds percussion flaked trade blanks to lighten the weight of flint pieces transported for trade or for knapping somewhere else at a later date. These huge blanks are a fairly common find all over the ranch wherever the Edwards formation limestone yields rootbeer or Edwards blue flint nodules. Those are the two of the three major chert types that were collected here locally. They call it flint but it is actually chert. The Edwards blue is actually black with gray streaks and occurs in veins too, some of which are so thick and erosion resistant that they form some of our horseback paths we use for crossing the creek. The third type is a vein type called Pedernales Chert and actually looks a lot like brown toned petrified wood. Really fooled me until I saw it in situ when we first moved here. Here's a pic of a typical trade blank. As you can see, they are big and hard to miss.....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 14, 2018 8:11:59 GMT -5
In the past there have been major excavations on a village site above our lake and of course, illegal trespassers who dig are fairly common. Their dang holes are a hazard to our horses and cattle so we patrol as much as possible and no longer allow digging. Several of the older residents have spectacular collections from back in the 70's when the ranch was first settled and digging was allowed. The neighboring ranch where we ride sometimes, has a little museum full of artifacts from a camp site on his place and he has frames full of eye popping artifacts, some quite rare like corner notched blades and Kerr Knives that were used for buffalo processing. All the stuff I find is just surface material and I also own a hill with an Amerind flint/chert quarrying site where I find some stuff when I'm doing weed work.....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 13, 2018 19:37:26 GMT -5
This part of the hill county was neutral territory for the Amerinds as many tribes came here to collect the local chert. Commonest finds are huge bifaces they chipped to make transport to final camps easier. Historic tribes were Tonkawa, Lipan Apache, Waco, Chana and Comanches, but many of these finds are older and the names of those archaic tribes are not really known as they predate written history. Very little is known of the Chana except they did exist. In Texas, after the Mexicans and whites came, the Amerinds were pretty much wiped out but man, based on how many artifacts are around, it was pretty heavily populated at intervals. When I'm out on horseback, there are areas where waste flakes from knapping are scattered everywhere and the dirt is black from old campfires.....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 13, 2018 12:51:34 GMT -5
Howdy folks, I love to hike and am in charge of cutting and clearing horse trails here on our 3000 acre ranch. Since I'm old and clumsy I tend to keep my eyes where I puts my foots and this is some of the stuff I pick up on my walks. Most our topsoil has washed away so we often find 4000 plus year old stuff right on the surface. real collecting took place when the ranch was first settled back in the 1970's. I sure wish I could have walked it then. Old timers talk of picking up pocketfuls of perfect points right by our mailboxes. Now a good oneis a rare find.....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 10, 2018 18:04:02 GMT -5
Lakers! Gotta love'em. Upper right is my fav....Mel
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,487
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Post by Sabre52 on Apr 10, 2018 8:32:36 GMT -5
Bob, Plainly you do not have enough rocks yet *L*. No wonder hurricanes don't bother your house. The rocks obviously hold it down...Mel
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