Hikin' for Rocks..........
1/16/09.......I guess I've been feeling old lately, an not feeling as excited as I usually do. When doing my alternate day hikes I usually collect a mess of rocks when doing that favorite and healthy past time. A few things are stressing me some lately, and it clearly interferes with mental and physical strength anymore, now that I am about to turn 60.
Lately I have gotten to know a youngerman who likes collecting rocks and arrowheads while fishing or hunting around the western states here. Anyway Adam told me he would like to show me some nearby area where he has found an unusual green rock, and lots of evidence of arrowhead and points having been made in the area.
It turns out the place he has shown me to, is only about two miles from Chalcedony Hill where I have been going and collecting rocks and artifacts ever since last Veteran's Day.
The two miles in to the area was tough enough to require Adams 4x4, and was a bumpy ten mintue ride in. Once there we alighted the vehicle, and began scouting around for desirable minerals and artifacts on the ground. Almost immediately began finding stuff. This green rock that I can only identify as ryolitic metamorphosed jaspers so far, was just all over the area in abundance, and almost all of it was already recognizable as chips, flakes and cores from early indian/man knapping of stone for tools and weapons. It was in a range of greens from light greens and slightly drab colors, to a nice medium grass green and really deep forest green. The darkest colors intrigued me the most and I went around stooping and bending for this and that, until my bag contained about twenty five pounds of the man worked stone evidence.
Along the way, I also collected up two pockets full of chalcedony nodules in all their milky, and cloudy, and translucent appearance. And sometime also having some opalescence and chatoyancy making them even more awesome and valuable. They were laying on the desert surface here and there and everywhere. The byproduct or volcanism, geothermal activity, and erosion; leaving them almost like pearls remaining from a broken and scattered strand necklace of thousands.
After three hours or so, and as the sun was almost on the western horizon, and the cold of the high desert winter nights began to settle in; we called it quits and went to Adams house to get my car and go home. I was a bit worn out and hurting from having lifted somany pounds of rocks, having collected almost forty pounds all together. And the nice amount of nodules too. All this green rock was amazing to see, and the artifact value also let me estimate the age of the worked stones as over the last five thousand years by the knapping styles that were used here.
The next day I took some pieces to my lapidary/silversmith friend DWB to work and yeild their usefulness in jewelry. They seem very promising.
This area I collected from is an hour east of Reno Nevada on HWY I-80, and then three miles south of Fernley on HWY 95A, and two miles west of the highway on any accessible dirt roads heading west into the hills here on BLM lands, the lapidary quality of many rock spieces here are great, and sometimes an avid collector can find a real GEM.......
Lately I have gotten to know a youngerman who likes collecting rocks and arrowheads while fishing or hunting around the western states here. Anyway Adam told me he would like to show me some nearby area where he has found an unusual green rock, and lots of evidence of arrowhead and points having been made in the area.
It turns out the place he has shown me to, is only about two miles from Chalcedony Hill where I have been going and collecting rocks and artifacts ever since last Veteran's Day.
The two miles in to the area was tough enough to require Adams 4x4, and was a bumpy ten mintue ride in. Once there we alighted the vehicle, and began scouting around for desirable minerals and artifacts on the ground. Almost immediately began finding stuff. This green rock that I can only identify as ryolitic metamorphosed jaspers so far, was just all over the area in abundance, and almost all of it was already recognizable as chips, flakes and cores from early indian/man knapping of stone for tools and weapons. It was in a range of greens from light greens and slightly drab colors, to a nice medium grass green and really deep forest green. The darkest colors intrigued me the most and I went around stooping and bending for this and that, until my bag contained about twenty five pounds of the man worked stone evidence.
Along the way, I also collected up two pockets full of chalcedony nodules in all their milky, and cloudy, and translucent appearance. And sometime also having some opalescence and chatoyancy making them even more awesome and valuable. They were laying on the desert surface here and there and everywhere. The byproduct or volcanism, geothermal activity, and erosion; leaving them almost like pearls remaining from a broken and scattered strand necklace of thousands.
After three hours or so, and as the sun was almost on the western horizon, and the cold of the high desert winter nights began to settle in; we called it quits and went to Adams house to get my car and go home. I was a bit worn out and hurting from having lifted somany pounds of rocks, having collected almost forty pounds all together. And the nice amount of nodules too. All this green rock was amazing to see, and the artifact value also let me estimate the age of the worked stones as over the last five thousand years by the knapping styles that were used here.
The next day I took some pieces to my lapidary/silversmith friend DWB to work and yeild their usefulness in jewelry. They seem very promising.
This area I collected from is an hour east of Reno Nevada on HWY I-80, and then three miles south of Fernley on HWY 95A, and two miles west of the highway on any accessible dirt roads heading west into the hills here on BLM lands, the lapidary quality of many rock spieces here are great, and sometimes an avid collector can find a real GEM.......
