ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Nov 4, 2016 8:04:08 GMT -5
I've been picking up some interesting rocks for the past three years in a remote spot in the Keweenaw Peninsula. I've read about Lake Superior thunder eggs, and I've always wondered if that's what these are. I finally rough tumbled enough to half fill my Lot-O. These things are a pain in the butt to tumble. The centers appear to be quartz and there are a lot of fractures both in the quartz and in the reddish parts. The bigger rocks are all boring. Some of the smaller ones have some good banding. Yes, they are Keweenaw Thunder Eggs. Some of yours are way bigger than most.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Nov 3, 2016 21:23:58 GMT -5
Do new pillow blocks need lube? Or factory lube already applied? Yes, this means I will soon have a tumbler running! And sphere machine grinding. Woot!! ETA and what grease to use? If they come with grease fittings, then they will need greased before using. Use any general purpose industrial and automotive NLGI 2 grease (lithium based). Only fill until evidence of new grease is seen exiting the bearing. Do not overfill. Overfilling causes excessive heat and grease churning. This is advice from my hubby who built machines for a living and installed and lubricated brand new pillow blocks every day.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Nov 1, 2016 6:27:27 GMT -5
I would say yours is a fortification agate where the bands are formed around the vug. In some agates where they are broken off a bigger parent rock can give an illusion of a water level. You can have both fortification and water level in the same agate. My example was just that an example of the straight lines. I could have just as well showed a water level agate from the Stilwell ranch in TX. Where you can have plume,fortification and water level in the same stone. If that is true than it must have broken off of a HUGE fortification agate, one of a size that would be considered unlikely to exist anywhere in the great lakes.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Oct 31, 2016 19:47:15 GMT -5
Well I am not here to argue or pis.. any one off. My thoughts are just that...thoughts. I grew up and live in the Moose Lake MN area and their are lots of ls agate. In my humble opinion if the lines don't lay flat it can't be a water level. When a person says a stone is turquoise it doesn't necessarily make it so. This is all I have to say. I apologize if I rubbed you the wrong way. It takes more than a person telling me I have misidentified a rock to pis.. me off. No offense taken. Perhaps my comparison rock is misidentified as well. (Found it during a search for water level agate pics, caption under pic said water level agate found at two hearted river.) Mine is quite translucent and not chert or flint. I just assumed it was a water level agate because I've never heard that the lines must be all flat and the pic I posted and ended up using to decide my choice of what it is seems to agree. What kind of agate would you classify mine as? Or the one in the picture I posted even? I noticed you can say what it is not, but can you tell what it is? Perhaps mine is a portion of seam agate? (Although it lacks any seam following layers, instead having strangely enough, parallel lines that just happen to not be straight.) With all due respect and not trying to pis.. you off, your example lacks the translucence that agate should possess and looks more like highly polished jasper, chert or flint. If it is opaque, it is not agate. This is from the agate lady's page on agate and not agate. Chert, Jasper, and Flint -- These chemical first cousins are silica dioxide minerals, but not considered agate. They are always opaque because their microcrystals are granular and packed closer together than the fibrous structure of chalcedony. Like agate, though, can be banded with conchoidal fractures. After more research on what I actually have, I believe it is a portion of a seam agate, and not a water level agate as I first thought. I saw a seam rock in its entirety and mine looked like what could be a section of something similar. Still don't know what the one in my example pic is.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Oct 31, 2016 17:52:49 GMT -5
I am not sure the water level agate has straigt enough lines, they follow the curve of the agate and are not straight. Here is an example. But you can't deny my rocks resemblance to this, which has been identified as water level agate, and whose lines are also not perfectly straight. Found at the Two Hearted River, Lake Superior.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Oct 30, 2016 18:22:03 GMT -5
NICE FINDS! Especially this one. Do you think it's pet wood? Also, do you have any idea what the first pic is?
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Oct 29, 2016 21:26:46 GMT -5
On what may well be the last warm enough Saturday to collect at a beach on Lake Michigan, we drove a couple hours north to Point Betsie and found some interesting stuff. First off..... Anyone know what this is??? It's black and appropriately pumpkin colored (we found it just before Halloween) Then we found this chunk of a water level agate.... Another one we found.... and another one...(focus messed up) More views, water levels. Not exceedingly beautiful, but a nice find though for Point Betsie. Not sure if this next one is agate or jasper We found this, which I think is chalcedony We found agatized fossils as well I think this is pet wood but I'm nowhere near sure it is.. I have no clue what this is but it looks nice As the rock picking gods were obviously smiling down on us, on this beach which I have never found more than one Petoskey in a day, I was blessed with two of the little fellers. After a horrendous spring trip there when the water covered the entire beach and we wrote this spot off after finding nothing, we were surprised at the amount of agate there today. We also found lots of really nice unakite and other stones too numerous to mention. Point Betsie came back from the dead just in time for Halloween..
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Oct 26, 2016 12:40:37 GMT -5
That was produced by Bowling Green State University, whom also featured my husband in a one hour radio special featuring his self produced and recorded original Native American music back in the 1990's and played his songs in their radio station's rotation for a while. What a cool school.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Oct 24, 2016 15:43:04 GMT -5
Nice, but that would only work for about five months in Michigan. Lucky you being able to wash rocks outside year round, I could get 6 months down here where I live in Michigan. Of course, I live about 200 miles southwest of you.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Oct 23, 2016 11:13:12 GMT -5
The ones up here in Michigan don't look anything like that one. So, what I am saying about Michigan Septarians obviously does not apply universally. Below are a few finished, partially finished and unfinished typical Michigan Septarians. It's fairly obvious how they became known as Lightning Stones. Note the different colors of mud matrix. The small pendant lower left has two or three different kinds in one stone. Some patches polished up and some didn't. The stones often have the "eye" shape like the one in the middle and the partially finished high domed one next to 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 Oct 23, 2016 9:26:34 GMT -5
They are quite soft - mostly calcite. Having worked with the septarians here in Michigan I feel I can be qualified in the following statement as mostly accurate. Actually, the calcite is the "veins" for lack of a better word. The veins are surrounded by "mud" also for lack of a better word. While the calcite and the mud are close to each other in hardness, the mud will most likely go away first in a tumbler. To make things worse, there are different compositions of mud in different and even the same nodule. Some of this mud is obviously way softer than either the other mud or the calcite. So, uneven and unpredictable results are most likely during a tumble of this material. My guess (because I've never tumbled it) is that some pieces will entirely go away while the harder ones will not cut evenly between the mud and calcite. These septarian nodules from Michigan that I work with, sometimes polish up nicely and evenly (I use a buffing wheel to shine them up) other stones that have mixed mud types are often patchy when it comes to an even polish on the entire surface. The mud on some of them just can't be polished. I have no experience with septarians from places other than Michigan.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Oct 22, 2016 21:40:20 GMT -5
Went up to Point Betsie and noticed that the level of the lake was at least a foot or maybe even two feet lower than the last time we went there in the spring. The wind was from the west so the water wasn't being blown towards Wisconsin. Am I imagining this drop or is it for real? Anyone else notice the difference? Lake Michigan and Huron are at the same level. Is Huron lower than it was this spring?
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Oct 19, 2016 19:16:39 GMT -5
Yep. Thomsonite is only found in Minnesota mostly at a now closed to the public area of beach near Grand Marais. It is not the same thing as pink prehnite, but some pink prehnite is quite similar in appearance. The pink prehnite found in the U.P. is (improperly) called U.P. Thomsonite. The occasional actual real Thomsonite rock can be picked up on beaches near Grand Marais Minnesota but they are pretty picked over and very rare. There are a few other places where Thomsonite can be found not in Minnesota as well but not too many.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Oct 18, 2016 13:20:10 GMT -5
Good thing its not a Petoskey in Michigan. The state would take it away.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Oct 18, 2016 10:17:23 GMT -5
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Oct 17, 2016 8:00:16 GMT -5
No, not yet, hope to retire to the Marquette Area in 12 years. Right now am a prisoner of NE Illinois. Marquette. Beautiful in the summer for 3 months Cold and dark for 9. Brrrrr.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Oct 16, 2016 17:45:18 GMT -5
Not very big. You couldn't make a pendant out of them. You still haven't mentioned what color you find there, but it's ok. You sir, may have that beach all to yourself with no fear of sharing it next year with me Hey, you aren't that guy who marathon runs and juggles at the same time on that TV commercial, are you?
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Oct 16, 2016 17:24:57 GMT -5
I love the Gratiot River beach. I always find prehnite there, although it's tiny. I've found agates there too. This summer we went in my sister's Chevy Equinox (2WD) with no problem. What color of prehnite do you find there? And how tiny is tiny??? Is it big enough to fashion something out of it? By the time we started looking for stuff, we were already put off by the drive there, the beer bottles and trash and the rowdy college kids. I'm sure I didn't give it a fair enough going over, preferring to move on to another spot we had on our map that day. I'm pretty sure your sisters Equinox (an SUV) has at least a couple inches more of ground clearance than my Fusion (a four door sedan) which is what our problems were caused by (our car was full of rough too from earlier stops that day, adding at least another 200 lbs.) not to mention that really sandy area about half way to the beach. I don't really have any feeling of ever needing to go back to that beach.
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Oct 16, 2016 17:13:04 GMT -5
Nodules in matrix from Manitou Island Agate? Have you cut any of those nodules?
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ziggy
spending too much on rocks
Member since June 2016
Posts: 483
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Post by ziggy on Oct 16, 2016 17:04:31 GMT -5
If I had to call that one based only on photos I would call quartzite or chalcedony.
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