My eyes are good enough to cut and paste links if I wear my sunglasses at the screen:
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Excellent tour of the the Baxter Mine on YouTube. Comes complete with the requisite twangy banjo music that is on every prospecting or Old West adventure video..
Besides being an “old fossil” , my fossil hunting actually goes back to when I was a kid in Germany. My dads’ family house was near a small town and they had a nice piece of land with the old family house on it. The whole area around the house was crushed rock that was brought in to make an area that didn’t get muddy during rains. In among the pieces of rock there were crinoid fossils. I would sit for hours looking in the gravel for pieces with the rounded fossils in them. I had no idea what they were but I remember looking for them.
Never got into fossils in a big way either but knew a bit about them from my college days.
Didn’t get back to fossils until I moved where we are now. I was taking the dogs on morning walks and when I walked, I rarely slowed down, I have always had a fast pace when I am out and hiking. But, having to pee does make one stop and on one hike I stopped to pee and then always looked around and to my amazement, found a bone in a piece of rock just about a mile West of our house. If I had just found the bone I may not have noticed much but thought it was something a coyote had lost but in this case, the bone was par of the rock of the area, a white caliche like material. That got me looking and before long I saw little bone fragments all over the place.
Home again I researched this and got in touch with the University in Tucson. One of the guys there sent me a paper he had written on the fossil history of the San Pedro River Valley. It seems this area was a study area for major Universities from a few places back in the 1930’s and 40’s. They had found this area rich in mammal fossils from recent times to about 5 million years. I was hooked and started looking more and more. Found a bunch of things and was able to identify quite a few species in what I had come across.
Found all sorts of things of the mammal fossils from the area, including Camel, Mastadon, Rhino, Horse and many more. Fun stuff and I have a nice display in the shop/museum of the finds.
There are a number of much more ancient fossils also in the area and those stones I sent photos of are examples.
Lots of shell fossils in the area limestones too. One spot between Tombstone and Bisbee has wonderful layers and each one a different kind of shell life in it.
Never did get into fossils as I did minerals but it was fun to learn some of the history of the area.
One that was both mineral, fossil and lapidary material is Turitella, a fossil material from the West. I got some nice big pieces of it and did a few into jewelry, quite hard stuff. You may look into getting some for your cutting.
Here is a photo of the Turitella I did a cabachon of, neat stuff.
This is fossil Auricaria cone from Argentina, this piece a friend gave me to cut. This material is somewhat protected now by the Argentine govt. it was mostly smuggled out before.
This one is Stromatolite, a fossil algae, and quite ancient. Got some of this to cut from the Illinois friend.
My knowledge of fossils is not that good but I have had fun with the material I have come across.
I am sure you will come across some also in hunting rock. Petrified wood, or pet wood as we call it, is a good example.
Do you know what this is? I saw one yesterday and broke off a stem simply by touching it. Saw another today and left this fragile assemblage alone. Termites! As Jim Boone of BirdandHike.com emailed me: Hi Tom, That is the work of termites. They have to stay underground, so they put mud on above ground stems so they feel like they are underground. The same could be said as: The workers think they need to stay underground, so the ruling class puts mud on above-ground stems so the workers feel like they are still underground. Stay well, Jim Jim Boone Las Vegas, NV birdandhike.com #termites#mojavedesert#desert#inyocounty#naturalworld#insects#mojave
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Limestone Chinese writing rock? Porphyritic something or other. Not igneous, fizzes when powdered. Marine rock country in the North Nopah. ID forthcoming. Rough cut for specimens, too soft for cabs since it can’t produce a high polish. I’m just experimenting, anyway. #geology #limestone#mojave#explore#desert#inyocounty#lapidary#rocks#rockhounding#geologistonboard
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This screamed “Garden rock!” when I walked by. My bad leg screamed “No way!” The rock won. The rock always wins. #o#roadtrip #inyocounty #madness #rockhounding#hiking#exploring#geology #geologistonboard #minerals#musthaveit#deathvalleyregion
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Marine fossils in the rock. I’m not a fossil guy. The paper I reference was behind a paywall. Twenty bucks. I paid it an still going through it. It does mention oolites and I think that’s responsible for the lizard skin texture seen in many of these pieces. #rocks#geology#marinefossils#mojave#desert#inyocounty #fossils#dolostone#nopahwildernessarea #lapidary#
Trying to find the road to the Barnett Prospect. Going up the wash that blew out the road. And the road only went so far, the last geologist says you have to hike the final mile. #inyocounty #desert#geology#rocks#mojavedesert #desertwash #mining
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Further up the wash. #mining#inyocounty#explore#geology#mines#mojavedesert rocks#desert# desert wash
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Difficult hiking because everything underfoot is moving. #desertwash#mojavedesert #mining#geology #inyocounty#mines
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Further up the canyon like wash. Should have taken a longer route to avoid this nonsense. #geologyrocks #geology #hiking #mining #desertwash#rocks#mines#inyocounty#explore#madness #inyocounty
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Made it to the end of the road the hard way. They drove this far and then the literature says they went up by foot. #geology #roadtrip #hiking #inyocounty#prospecting#desertwash#oldmines#mining#explore#inyocounty
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The Barnett Prospect will wait for another day. #hiking #trails#mines#exploremore #inyocounty#explore#geology#
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A well defined boundary between gravel and rock on the upside of the hill, and far, far less gravel on the slope below. You can clearly see where the darker material starts. Limestone rock below the boundary not rolled or smooth. Update. This border is visible on Google Earth. #geology#deathvalleyregion#mines#inyocounty#mojavedeserttortoise
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Found one more of these crazy rocks I can’t identify. Mohs scale of three so it wouldn’t polish that well. This is shown wet. Looks like porphyritic diabase and hardly fizzes but I am still unsure. Marine rocks everywhere, limestone, quartzite, you know the list. Guesses?#rocks#hiking#explore#getoutside##geology#geologistonboard#inyocounty#limestone#rockidentification
Dublin Gulch near Shoshone. Rooms carved out of hard clay. Some fireplaces and stoves. #shoshonecalifornia #desert#mojave#desertliving#inyocounty#deathvalley
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Going inside a two room affair. This one had a stove and a stove pipe. The still photo shows how textured material like an old door gets a new life in monochrome. #shoshoneca#roadtrip#desertliving#mojave#deathvalley#getoutdoors #explore#
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The old Shoshone cemetery. Nothing like being buried in a clay pit. #cemetery #cemeteryphotography #cemeterywandering #shoshone#roadtrip#inyocounty #deathvalley
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Famous road cut two miles west of Shoshone on HWY 178. Several layers of tuff, which is lithified ash and fragments called clasts which are thrown out of a vent. Notable here is the dark layer. This is vitrophyre, which is crystal or phenocryst laden obsidian. Tiny pieces look like glassy black sand, larger pieces can be solid or break apart easily. The safer collecting spot for these volcanics is on the other side of the road, since this road cut was cut and fill. Plenty of material on the downslope across the road.
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Vitrophyre from that road cut along with somewhat lithified tuff from the site. Also at the site is this orange, strongly welded tuff laced with vitrophyre. I did not self collect that piece, bought it from RC last year, but there is plenty at the road cut if you want to do the pick work and dress the stone. #rocks#geology#geologistonboard#volcanics#roadtrip#rockhound#geologyrocks#inyocounty
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Trying to orient people to Shoshone. Tecopa and the China Date Farm are only fifteen miles or so from Shoshone. #geology#roadtrip#rocks#deathvalley#explore#
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Okay, who’s the rockhound dumping in the desert? Pulled off the road a bit about eight miles from Shoshone. I promised myself no rockhounding today but look what I found! This isn’t construction debris, some of the sandstone pieces have been slabbed. Nice 1/4 inch thickness. Collected half a bag of miscellaneous. A few agate pieces light up soft lime green but nothing special. My metal detector doesn’t trip on anything but one of my Geiger counters won’t quiet down on a sandstone piece with a purple deposit. Hmm. Another mystery. I will return. Oh, the last photo shows the tricky entry point to the highway. Don’t get high centered. #roadtrip#rockhound#rockhounding#shoshone#restingspringswilderness#inyocounty#minerals#radioactivity
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Resting Springs Wilderness Area. I’m outside the boundary, no vehicle traffic allowed in the WA. #wilderness#roadtrip#shoshone#limestone#rocks #geology #minerals
