ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Dec 22, 2016 18:49:43 GMT -5
A tiny bit of geology research Google style shows us that this material is quite similar chemically (and visually as well) to Larimar. Your gem picture made that quite clear. Chlorastrolite and Pectolite of similar origin and chemistry. Not identical, but very close. The mindat page Does not show these two as being related chemically but the two minerals do look a lot alike and both do have similar crystal structure at times. Under "Relationship of Pectolite to Other Minerals" in both Pectolite and "Relationship of Pumpellyite (Mg) to Other Species" pumpellyite there is no correlation. I am not able to equate the two as they form in different environments and conditions. The Pumpellyite forms in amygdules in basalt and occurs as amygdaloid structures and fracture fillings in basalt. Pectolite forms in nepheline syenites which is a holocrystalline plutonic rock that consists largely of nepheline and alkali feldspar. The crystallography is different for the two minerals as well with chlorastrolite having Crystal System Orthorhombic and Habit Fibrous aggregates, and Pectolite has a Crystal System Triclinic and Habit Globular masses, the rarer crystals showing tabular habit. The habit of pectolite is especially liable to alteration, and in nature it is frequently altered to zeolites (especially natrolite), sodalite, kaolin, or compact muscovite. Another Zeolite that IS found in basalt in Michigan is Thomsonite (very similar to Chlorastrolite) and perhaps that might mean something although there is no info about one altering into the other. I think the Larimar looks sexier though.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Dec 22, 2016 14:30:55 GMT -5
Finally got all the chlorastrolite nodules out of the basalt (and one Prehnite nodule too.) Looks like eight are actually big enough to polish up. We also got at least twenty really small ones (he'll have to glue them on a finishing nail to polish them they're so small.) The one in the middle nearest the quarter is the first one he got out by careful excavation. For the rest he just smashed the basalt off of them with a rock pick. The flat sides on the two small ones near the bottom were from the edge of the rock and were the exposed side. The big one just under the quarter to the right would have been bigger but that one got cut by the trim saw (hence the flat side on that piece and the one in the middle bottom which is the cut off from it.) Now all we gotta do is hope they look good after polishing. The rock pick bashing process sped things up a lot but there were lots of cracked smaller stones that went to waste. They broke easier than the keepers though so maybe they were junk anyway.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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ID
Dec 22, 2016 6:58:45 GMT -5
Post by ziggy on Dec 22, 2016 6:58:45 GMT -5
Dale, #3? Leaverite?? just busting your chops my friend!! With all the holes and porosity I would judge it a Leaverite as well. The first two are really nice though.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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ID
Dec 21, 2016 21:59:16 GMT -5
Post by ziggy on Dec 21, 2016 21:59:16 GMT -5
Revived a large box of rocks today from a good friend. He travels around the U.S. To drill oil wells. Some of the rocks had no name or location printed on them. If you can help, please do. All the rocks are around 7 MOHs My guess on the middle one is jaspilite. It is a mix of Jasper and Hematite. The largest outcropping of this stuff is found in Ishpeming Mi. at Jasper Knob. This link takes you to the Mindat page showing some of the jaspilite actually at Jasper Knob hill. The mohs hardness of jasper is 7. Jaspilite can be found in at least three places in Canada and two in the U.S. The other one in the U.S. being in Vermont at a place called Diamond hill. My guess on the top one is a Thunder Egg. The one pictured below is simply called an Oregon Thunder Egg on the Etsy page I found it on.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Dec 19, 2016 21:01:14 GMT -5
ziggy I will send you a chunk of rough with some nice nodules if you would like. Just pm your address. Wow! Nice offer but I will pass on it. With me it's just the thrill of the hunt. I love going for long road trips and rocks are the perfect reason to take one. The trip is as good as the destination usually for me. I thought you were up that way in Minnesota. I went through there on the way to Thunder Bay once about twenty years ago. Beautiful up there. Got some nice amethyst up there in Thunder Bay. The hole saw idea has passed my mind a couple of times when I see bedrock with stuff like greenstone and prehnite at the beaches up in the U.P. Not so sure I would ever do that at a park though. When we go back to Hunter's point next summer we are taking a rock pick with us at least because I saw this one boulder that looks a little bit too big and someone might hurt themselves when tripping over it.....
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Dec 19, 2016 20:11:18 GMT -5
Super cool! Glad you were brave enough to make another thread. 😎 I have never heard of that stoner before. Thanks for new knowledge!! You are most likely referring to the "jorts" incident, eh? I figured that if I didn't include any references to denim I might be OK in this one. Time will tell. Oooops. I just said denim twice.... Below is a typical finished gem quality greenstone
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Dec 19, 2016 20:07:24 GMT -5
Super glad the aw crap moment turned out ok. I wish I was so lucky sometimes extracting thomsonite. My new idea is to use a diamond hole saw. Yeah, the aw crap moment turned into an ah ha moment. He wasn't so lucky on the next nodule he tried. He got too close with the bit and it fractured and a big chunk of it fell off before it ever got anywhere near as far as his first one. Oh well, there's three more like it still untouched. Do you get your thomsonite in Minnesota? I'm always looking for the U.P. version of it (pink prehnite) but have not been so fortunate with that search. I think when I was up there by Copper Harbor I saw a beach rock with a really tiny pink spot on it but passed it up because it looked so small. Probably should have kept it. Might be the only one I'll ever see there.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Dec 19, 2016 14:46:58 GMT -5
Hubby was picking away some matrix from the edge of the nodule and it just popped off and fell on the floor. At first we thought he broke the greenstone, but after looking more closely we realized that the stone had cleanly parted ways from the matrix. It has a funny little hook on one end/side and you can see where it fit in on the matrix in the photo below and is nearly round. After weighing the stone it came up to 1.6 grams which equates to 8 carats. The average size of a typical Keweenaw greenstone is 1 carat. Some greenstones in the mine piles can reach 3 to 5 hundred carats but these are few and far between. The price for a one gram greenstone is $116 (in the rough) and polished ones go for between $50 and $200 per carat. Hubby will be polishing this one up as he has the skills to do that stuff and I probably don't. Unfortunately, unless spring comes three months early this year, it'll have to wait to be polished. Now, on to the next nodule in this rock.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Dec 19, 2016 11:42:40 GMT -5
Progress on the greenstone extraction continues. Below you can see the grooves made around the stone by the diamond bits. After he gets it down a ways he takes it to his belt sander and reduces the sides own to the level of the diamond drill cuts. It's turning out to be a fairly nice sized greenstone, at least as far as greenstones go. The one to the lower right of the one he is digging out has increased in size also and hubby is considering ways to grind around it in the hopes that it too will be worth excavating. After he removes the excess rock around the stone, he goes and scrapes the matrix off the stone with his pocket knife so he can accurately follow it through the matrix without grinding off any of the actual greenstone. The photo below has an inclusion circled in red that is about the same size as the one he started out on.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Dec 19, 2016 9:49:26 GMT -5
Wow great find, green stones are pretty cool. Looking forward to seeing end result. Will you or your husband make your ring? Neither of us have made a ring yet so it looks like we will both be learning something new.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Dec 19, 2016 9:48:31 GMT -5
Neat! Wonder what it all is. The light green ones are the Greenstone (Michigan's state gem is the Chlorastrolite, a variety of Pumpellyite also called Greenstone) inclusions and the dark green spots are epidote I believe (but I'm not positive about that.)
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Dec 19, 2016 9:45:03 GMT -5
Hire a dump truck and back hoe , haul a couple loads home , pick out what you want and haul the rest back . Works for beach rock too . Seriously , I found it was better to dig a little , at least roll some rock out of the way . Otherwise your looking at the same rocks that a thousand other people looked at . Depends also when you go , before , during or after mineral week . We only looked for copper when we were there , now that we have a better idea of what is there and how to identify , a whole new world has opened up . I know we tossed a lot of good stuff away because of lack of knowledge . There is a bunch of other mines we are going to check when we get back up there . We have made a lot of good contacts who have told us where we can find what , just didn't know how to id most of it . There is a lot of good to be found but a lot of others looking for it . Most of those simply don't have the time to dig around for it , or they think the good stuff is scattered around on top for them to grab . Hopefully this helps even a little bit . Just remember , most of the time good things don't come without a little effort . Happy Hunting Well, the first option is way out of my price range seeing as I'm on a fixed income of just enough to live on each month with twenty or so bucks left before the month ends. Fortunately I am also able to stash away a little each month so I can take a trip up there in the summer. We will most likely go there in june or july when it finally gets warm enough to actually search up there. When we went up there in august last year we never saw another person on any of the mine piles we went to so I'm not too worried that we will be luckless because of others. We definitely planned on the change of tactics to digging this year so it looks like that's what we'll do. Not afraid to put the effort in when needed. I do lots of online research about the mine piles and what can be had there so I'm not going to pass up anything good due to not being able to identify it. Just got to find it first. Thanks for your input (and confirmation.)
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Dec 18, 2016 22:39:48 GMT -5
Some of the other inclusions he is planning on excavating.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Dec 18, 2016 22:03:51 GMT -5
I picked up this basalt beach rock with what looked like tiny greenstone inclusions in it at Hunter's Point park just west of Copper Harbor. Hubby decided to see how big the rest of one of the inclusions was. He started carving the stone out with diamond tool bits. It is obvious he is onto something It seems to get at least 4 times as big as it looked from what was showing at first. For a greenstone it is actually getting pretty big as most of them are pea size. It started out about the same size as the inclusion on the left side in the photo below (which I'm sure is the same way, along with 4 or 5 more throughout the rock.) We'll update what we end up with as soon as we're done. Elsewhere on this rock there is also this neat bubble of what looks to me like prehnite with one little tiny speck of copper inclusion on it. It's shaped like a little mini cab and hubby was thinking about freeing it from the matrix and polishing it for a ring.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Dec 18, 2016 19:25:52 GMT -5
I was just wondering. For those who have been successful. How do you search when doing a mine pile in the U.P.? Are you the kind who walks around looking at all the exposed stuff sitting on top, picking up whatever you get lucky to find or do you find a good looking spot and sit down and dig? Last year while exploring the Cliff Mine poor rock piles I used the walk around and find whatever you get lucky enough to find approach. I found lots of prehnite and calcite but I really would like to find some datolite and some chlorastrolite. I couldn't seem to locate either of those with my walk around and look approach so would digging help perhaps? I know both of those are found there. Datolite nodules look like cauliflower heads and chlorastrolite will be found in amygdules in the poor rock. I saw old dig sites all over the top of the most westerly of the piles up near Cliff road. I was thinking about changing tactics and settling down to dig when I go up there this summer. Probably less chance of twisting an ankle or breaking my leg that way anyway. Is that going to help me perhaps? I plan on letting my hubby do the dirty work (the actual digging) and I will use a rock pick to open up promising possibilities, examine the stuff for anything we might get out later and of course look through everything he throws my way. Also plan on doing the Wolverine, Iroquois, and Clark mine piles as well (to mention just a few.) Thanks in advance
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Dec 18, 2016 11:05:01 GMT -5
Silverthorne got dumped on! Here's a pic of the railing pillow with a 1 foot ruler pushed into it and the total height was 21" flic.kr/p/P57j1RWe get lake effect snow here in West Michigan CONSTANTLY. We might as well live in Buffalo N.Y. (probably the most well known lake effect snow city) Sometimes adds up to more than ten feet by the end of winter. I only live about a mile from Lake Michigan, right where the snow starts falling really heavily from the lake effect. Still we have it easy compared to a spot in the U.P. named Herman Mi. that averages close to 300 inches a season and got a record 30 inches of snow in 24 hours. It is known as the snowiest place east of the Rockies. This is the accumulation of our last dumping on over the course of 24 hours (totaling close to 18 inches.) Funny thing here is it might do that every other day all winter.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Dec 15, 2016 13:43:50 GMT -5
This one is a dead ringer for the first one we found. And this is a dead ringer for the second one. I cut the first one into slabs and lost track of where they ended up. Gotta go look for them someday in my slab storage area (a bunch of plastic cotton candy tubs out near the garage door.) Oh well, I couldn't wait for someday so I went out and found one of the slab buckets. Below are some of the variolite slabs. The flash blew out the color which is actually pale green. From what I understand, it is a decomposing form of granite with orbicular inclusions, but there is plenty of contrary info and I'm probably wrong, but that is what someone who should know about it told me.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Dec 14, 2016 21:24:38 GMT -5
So lexan is polycarbonate and you used acrylic glue. How does that work out? What is the solvent in there? ziggy !! I got on ePlastics web site and looked up what glue they had listed for lexan. It said #16 was for lexan. That's all I know. It really worked well though. Welded the stuff together with ten minutes set up time. Just went and looked at the label on it. Says Fast Set, Clear medium bodied solvent cement. Working time 5-6 minutes. Fixture time 10 minutes. 80% Strength 24 hours. Says it works on butyrate, polycarbonate, styrene, other plastics and right under that in big letters acrylics (which is what I assume you saw.) If you go look at the picture I posted of the tube of glue I used closely you can read it (the other plastics it works on) too. The ingredients (listed in font almost too small to read with my 60 year old eyes) are methyl actate, dichloromethane, methylene chloride, methyl ethyl ketone, methyl methacrylate monomer. Here's a link to the website I used. glue If you read the description of #16 you can see it will weld either acrylic or polycarbonate. From what I read on their website, you can use # 40 to weld acrylic to polycarbonate.I am not a plastics engineer. Apparently it will work on more than one chain of molecules though. That's why I use what is recommended to do the job.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Dec 14, 2016 17:50:36 GMT -5
Yup, same . ive seen it called poppy jasper too Nebula stones are all river cobbles said to originate from a single canyon in "Mexico". They have confusing identification from various 'experts'. One, identifies Quartz, Anorthoclase, Acmite, Arfedsonite, Riebeckite and Zircon make me feel like it's a pretty orbicular granite. They claim mohs 6.5-7 I have found variolite while hounding the back dirt roads in Michigan....twice. One stone was bright green with really contrasting white spots and the other was paler green with equally paler spots.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Dec 14, 2016 13:16:23 GMT -5
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