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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Joshua Tree Quartz Crystals
Not exactly sure where I found them, it may have been on private land
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Nick Danger
Ice climber
Arvada, CO
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A few little SEM images from deep within Pahute Mesa.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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During my misspent youth
I had a need for some big landscaping rocks
How could I bring landscaping rocks from the crags back home w/o a crane??
The answer, collect "Thin Flakes"!!
On one outing, I found some nice big flakes and as I'm loading them into my truck I come to the realization that I'm a "Flake Collector".
So I named a boulder problem "The Flake Collector" for fun, it was a steep flakey face.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Mount Baldwin on the East of the Sierras consists of pure limestone.
Near the top, there are some caves with giant calcite crystals
and drusy amethyst quartz
Split Mt. is also limestone with some complex skarn areas that have garnets and other minerals
This is one of my best pieces from the area
This spessartine garnet is from Pakistan
The cross is natural
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Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Topic Author's Reply - May 9, 2017 - 03:46pm PT
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Nice rocks folks.
Craig, I like that quartz crystal you found with attached garnets. I've found garnets in quartz, but not nice ones attached to a quartz crystal.
Which meant I had to buy some Chinese spesertine garnets on quartz crystals at a Tucson Gem & Mineral Show, since I never found any of those in Idaho's Sawtooth Mts., even though there are, or were, some there.
I do like finding nice mineral specimens out in the mountains, much better than buying them, but "needs must" at times.
I did find a nice topaz as an inclusion in a Sawtooth quartz crystal back in the 1970's. I'd forgotton I had it, until about 4 years back, when I "found it" again, in a dusty box of specimens.
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Charlie D.
Trad climber
Western Slope, Tahoe Sierra
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If there is any doubt how much water came down the Western Slope of the Sierra this winter, check out the log jammed up behind the flake 30' above the river:
Anyway the post is of rock!!! Nice to be out on the granite after this winter.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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2/12/17
https://www.mountainproject.com/forum/topic/112491913/matt-horner
http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/news/local-news/2017/04/keene-ice-climber-back-to-sculpting-art-2-months-after-60-foot-fall/
I have some specimen quality rocks( minerals ) that were kept for 30+ years in a display cabinet that also contained Vermiculite. A product my dad brought home from Libby Montana. We used to take a match or lighter & heat the Mica-like flakes that would then expand in an accordion-like fashion.
The problem is the presence of the fine dust. I found that my crazy mom would encourage toddlers to use cheap Chinese made metal hammers to play ' miner' with her dead husbands exotic rock collection.
Hammering off Crystal extrusions; even chipping off a veneer of raw Opel ;(
- that was a prized find. . .
I boxed the semi-precious stones up, bagged the asbestos /Vermiculite stuffed it in an empty paint, can taped shut with a description, turned it in at the haz-mat recycling.
Now, certain of the specimens can be run through the dishwasher, but it just isn't worth the risk. Boxed samples stones now sit in a moldy garage. It is such a shame. It give's one a window on the damaged folks who I was escaping as a teen in 1979 when I showed up in JTree.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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May 10, 2017 - 10:28am PT
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Looks a little like my Zirconolite
(Ca,Y)Zr(Ti,Mg,Al)2 O7
the mineral also contains thorium, uranium, cerium, niobium and iron; the presence of thorium or uranium makes the mineral radioactive.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jun 20, 2017 - 06:13am PT
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Solstice sunrise.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Jun 27, 2017 - 09:46am PT
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Gypsum spears on a dry lake that get picked up by dust devils
"Don't be there then" is the advice given by bystanders!
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skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
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Jun 27, 2017 - 09:58am PT
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^^^^^ OK, as a geologist THAT is pretty cool and interesting Craig. Never seen anything quite like that.
Hmmmmm, I should post something here today....
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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Jun 27, 2017 - 10:00am PT
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Some old photos
Pyrrhotite with galena
Titanite
Ettringite
Andularia with epidote
Scapolite
Sillimanite/Fibrolite
7 carets from the Burmese Gem beds
Way rarer than diamonds in Gem Form
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Nick Danger
Ice climber
Arvada, CO
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Jun 27, 2017 - 11:15am PT
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Craig Fry,
Dry lake playas can play host to some pretty amazing things.
Perhaps you have seen some slimy green algal matt floating on some stagnant pond somewhere. Well, the photo below is one such ancient algal mat that was completely silicified by silica-rich water in an ancient wetlands lake. Carbon 14 age dates on spring deposits associated with this lake suggest it all occurred approximately 10,000 to 11,000 years ago.
Elsewhere on this same playa several acres of the surface is covered by these fossilized roots associated with wetland plants such as cattails and bulrushes. I confirmed these tentative identities by digging up modern examples and comparing the modern roots to these fossilized versions. Then I had some thin sections made of the fossils and found microscopic structures quite similar to photomicrographs made of modern roots for the same classes of plants. Pretty Cool!
Play surfaces can be a real treasure trove sometimes.
cheers
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ydpl8s
Trad climber
Santa Monica, California
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Jun 28, 2017 - 10:42am PT
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What did those fossilized roots and algal mat look like through crossed nicols?
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Nick Danger
Ice climber
Arvada, CO
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Jun 28, 2017 - 11:00am PT
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Dark. The silica was cryptocrystalline quartz and was so incredibly finely crystalline as to be nearly opaque in crossed nicols. I could put in the 1/4 wave length gypsum plate and produce pinpoints of blue and honey yellow colors, confirming quartz as the mineral composing them (assuming, of course, that the thin sections were the correct thickness). In plane polarized light I could see and identify features and structures that looked like the types of structures observed in modern roots. That being said, even in plane polarized light they were too dark to make really good photomicrographs so I didn't include any such images in my reports. Additionally, silica replacing the biologic matter made perfect sense in that the bedrock surrounding this paleo-wetland was composed of silica-rich rhyolitic and latitic ash-flow tuffs with a significant component of vitric ash. Since vitrphyres are glassy and thus thermodynamically unstable, that source of silica went right into the water comprising surface runoff and shallow groundwater feeding this wetland system.
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ydpl8s
Trad climber
Santa Monica, California
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Jun 29, 2017 - 07:20am PT
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Thanks Nick, I had to pull out my optical crystallography book, which hadn't been opened for about 35 yrs. Nice analysis!
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Nick Danger
Ice climber
Arvada, CO
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Jun 29, 2017 - 07:28am PT
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Scott, as always, you are too kind....
cheers
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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I had to pull out my optical crystallography book.
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Craig Fry
Trad climber
So Cal.
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love the Beryl crystals
These aren't mine, but they live on my computer as rock porn.
Collectors own these pieces
they aren't stuck in some museum
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Fritz
Social climber
Choss Creek, ID
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 5, 2017 - 09:10am PT
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Yeah! Gotta love those aquamarines. I've only seen this one on the internet.
Heidi bought this one at the Tucson Gem & Mineral show about 8 years back. Due to the great recession, the Pakistani sellers were not having a good show & she worked them down a goodly ways on their pricing. Aquamarine & Muscovite mica.
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