Destructive collecting

This past weekend I took Little Guy to find a carnelian. One of the iphone apps I have gave directions to the site, which took us about an hour and a half to reach. It was a nice drive and to my surprise Grim and Mandy had decided to tag along. Upon reaching our destination we were confronted with signs that made no bones about how the property owners (a tree company) felt about looking for said rocks. I was pretty surprised, until I started to take a look around. Almost very bend I could see in the creek had huge areas dug out along the banks. The hills beside the gravel road also showed massive amounts of destruction from individuals digging away the sides. Further up the creek piles of rock and mud were evident from screening and dredging for these rocks. Since when is mining activity attributed to a "hobby"?

I came across two locals on horseback and they told me that the area used to be a madhouse on the weekends with groups of people who identified themselves as being from rock clubs. While not all bad behavior can be directly attributed to these types of clubs, I do think they bear a big part of the responsibility for the site being closed. To overtax an area with too many people can take a huge toll on the locals who live in the area and want to enjoy some peace and quiet over the weekends. Not capping arranged trips to a certain amount of members can result in chaos and possibly bad behavior due to competition for getting that "rock". I've seen it happen before at other sites when there is too little room, too many people. Total madness.

In addition, if you are using mining techniques to get said rock, you are no longer a hobbyist- you are a miner! Buy a plot of land and mine it, but don't ruin rock collecting for those who like to casually walk streambeds and pick up rocks already exposed. At the very most, only digging out a rock that is half in/half out with a rock hammer. But to tear away a creekbed, adding to the sediment load.. bad! If you can remove a rock and it makes little to no visual difference, then that is a hobby or getting a rock sample. But if you are removing massive amounts to the point an entire bank is cut away, you are destroying the environment!
So thank you very much greedy people- you just effectively ruined one of the few FREE & educational activities I enjoyed with my children. At least for that area. I'm sure if this continues unchecked, more and more sites will become off-limits.



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Rock paper scissors...

After some thought, I feel I have been a little (or rather more than a little) unfair to Husband in regards to invading most of our closet territory. As I walked about the house and garage, I came to the startling conclusion that I have more than invaded most areas around the house with small-ish piles of rocks. This is not to include the rocks I collect and keep in the living room as a quasi display. I can't really call them decorative because most women who enter my home are unimpressed, as not all of them are what they would see as pretty- but I keep what interests me. Such as black calcite. From all outward appearances it is probably quite ugly to the average person, but to me it is absolutely lovely.

I figured I'd swallow my embarrassment and show you what my coffee table and "little" messes look like because I am curious if other geologists have these small piles of rocks around their home too. I know I need to defenestrate a lot of what I have gathered, as not all of the rocks I have are keepers. I just grab what I see of interest at the time and look later, as there have been numerous times I've kicked myself for NOT grabbing a piece. Such as the greenschist I came across on a field trip. I didn't grab it because I hadn't realized I already had a piece of corbin gneiss in my pack from the weekend before and hence by the time I had hiked in I was too tired to put anything more in my pack, and I wasn't about to dump the corbin gneiss.

Now I wish I had just sucked it up and grabbed the darned greenschist! It was perfect- all shimmery and a stunning shade of green. At any rate, there are times when you intend on returning to a spot but it just never happens, so it is best to grab the piece then and there. Especially when you know they are nice pieces. (Sometimes I grab leaverites just because I am curious, although usually only when I'm not packing long treks:).
To get back the subject about my messes... I went into the garage and noticed that Husband had put my hiking boots next to my rocks because I had failed to put them away last week when we went out.

All my rocks were neatly off to the side of the garage from the first trip and the rocks from the second trip were in a pile at the front of the garage. I had once mentioned to Husband that I didn't like the rocks mixed until I had sorted through them and labeled the ones I intended to keep, but I guess I hadn't specified that it didn't matter when we collect from the same area if the rocks are mixed. Especially when it isn't formal (if it were they would be labeled out in the field or immediately thereafter) and furthermore, we got the rocks from a stream bed. So I kinda chuckled, but was touched by his efforts. I REALLY need to sort through these and eliminate the leaverites.

Despite my best efforts, I am never able to keep everything organized for very long before rocks start spilling out onto the floor. At some point I guess I will have to put some away or have a room to just put them in in order to establish some form of organization, but with moving so often I find that more of an idea for the far off future. I have tried to slim down the rocks I decide to keep, but for some reason or another I cannot bear to part with them. Some I found during Field Camp, some were given to me by peers, some just are too interesting.... sigh. What do you guys do to thin down your piles of rocks? Or do you even bother? Is it really an issue? Maybe I'm just normal and I have nothing to worry about. As long as we aren't over our weight limit for the military to move us it's all good there. And we are far from that, amazing as it is! I think we are allowed around 24K and last move we only had 16K so I have plenty of rock room there :)

But with it all said and done, I should be ashamed of myself for even questioning why Husband invaded my side of the closet, especially since I have infested the house with my rock piles. Granted, he has never complained, but perhaps that is because rocks are cheaper than Pier One. Oh, I used to love that place- but as you can see from the pictures, I have little room for decorations without giving up rock space. What to do... pretty rock, Pier One candle. Rock wins every time.

Kidnapping Husband for a day

Last Wednesday I talked my husband Matt into taking the day off so we could explore an area we had been in the weekend prior. I wanted to see if I could find more samples like the one I had found previously (and had never seen before) in hopes it would help in identification. I found quite a few, some with a bit of an oil/tar residue, and some more along the lines of my original find- which looked to be comprised of organics.




When I brought these new pieces home the oil residue was all but impossible to wash off. No matter how much I washed, the water remained as dirty as the first time I washed it.
In addition, the residue left on your hands after handling (wet or dry) was very sticky and oily. The outer exterior of these pieces mostly had what appeared to be a woody texture, but it would be rash for me to conclude they were of comprised of one particular piece (verses a mass of organics/organics+sediment).

Except for a few that I would be willing to say were quite probable one piece of a larger structure. I would need to cut a section for definitive proof though- as I have had egg on my face before when being too quick to rush to a conclusion, hence I am much more careful about concluding anything anymore without enough background research/advice/etc to jump to a conclusion about a specimen I am unfamiliar with.

Thus far, a lot of what my searching  has yielded (in regards to the initial sample I found) is along the lines of coal balls, although none of what I have matches the true definition of such- the environment and certain parameters match. While I don't think any of the pieces are lignified, I am not entirely sure they aren't. Vague as that comment is, the reason behind it is due to the aspect that the tar-like coating really prevents a good view and I haven't as of yet scraped at it to see how solidified the outer structure on some of them are. I am wont to destroy such beautiful textures- but when I get a moment I will see about finding an area that I'm willing to deface.

All in all, I have made little progress in discovering what my initial sample is, and actually came out with more questions than when I began. But it was a fantastic afternoon, despite the rain. -I learned early on in geology that weather is rarely a determining factor on if you go out into the field or not. Had it been a quest purely for the fun of it, I suppose a day when the sun was out would have been more pleasurable. But when my mind is whirling with questions to the point of distraction- rain or shine, I was going out. :) We had a few moments of sun though, so hubby didn't complain too much.


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Andesite, shale and sandstone

I'm a bit late getting out my Monday's Show and Tell, but here goes. This weekend I went on a bit of an adventure to test out some new iphone apps and see about collecting a couple of rock samples. I used GeologyWA/OR to find the rock types I was interested in and pinpoint possible areas of investigation (which obviously worked quite well- gotta love those geologic maps!), and to take images I decided to put Theodolite to the test. Unfortunately I didn't check to see if I had the "crosshairs" turned off, so the images from Theodolite ended up with them included in the images, but it wasn't entirely disastrous. The images weren't half bad, however you can't take the images in "portrait" without getting an elongated distortion. It displays the gps coordinates etc in the upper left hand corner of your image, so it isn't too bad when you want to keep track of where you have taken a particular photograph. It also zooms up to 4x, but you lose quality with each zoom. I prefer to just leave it as it is and edit in photoshop later. The image to the top left is of a bridge I hate crossing (note the rickety looking timbers) but I like what is on the other side so it is a necessary evil.

The drop down is apparently pretty far (from the picture Husband took) but I wasn't about to look for myself. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I tend to get vertigo over gorges and the like. Since this has caused me to miss out on some of the things I would love to see, it's a fault I've been trying to overcome. Thankfully I'm not as bad as I used to be when crossing bridges,  as there once was a time I would have had my eyes shut with my hands over my hears humming to myself. Progress is a good thing :)

One of the coolest rocks I found on my little excursion was andesite. When I first saw the rock I had to take a double take because it reminded me of a stromatolite at first glance. Upon picking it up I could see it was andesite, although I hadn't seen it eroded in such a way so it was a very nice find!I like rocks such as this one, as I find beauty in their form. The majority of the rocks I have about my home are in the raw as that is how I prefer them. (Minerals are a bit different- I do like polished malachite etc.)  It is at this point that I should mention that I am not overly familiar with volcanics, but that is probably the only fun part (for me) about being a military family. Each time I move, I have to learn the local geology. Since my entire undergraduate program has been so varied, I have a bit more diversity than the normal undergraduate. However I have not been in any areas with volcanics to the extent that this one provides.

I found some coal-which is really awesome since I had yet to obtain a sample of coal. It looks to be like a high grade of bituminous coal. Then I won the lottery when I came across a piece of shale that had beautiful leaf  and grass imprints embedded into it. I think it is quite the loveliest piece of shale I have ever seen. I put it in a special spot in my livingroom. The other rock I was wanting to find was the arkosic sandstone, and not only did I find that- but also a gorgeous piece of fine grained sandstone.

To conclude today's "show and tell" (although this isn't everything I discovered on my little expedition- I'll save the rest for another day) is a piece I am uncertain about. It has structures about it that would indicate it to be lithified wood, but  I am unfamiliar with this type of structure, having never actually even SEEN a piece of fossilized wood in person. The other thought I had was maybe it is just an imprint of wood on flow lava. I honestly am perplexed. I'm still researching it, however if by looking at the images below you can offer any insight, please feel free to point me in the right direction. The literature online hasn't offered me much in the way of assistance, married with the aspect that search engines are spitting back useless drivel.  Pictures below:

Go figure

So today I was actually less distracted than usual and actually remembered I had a doctors appointment. Being as my general habit is to not remember until 30 minutes prior to the appointment, I was pretty happy to be on top of things (for today at least). I show up about 30 minutes early with plans to just fiddle with my iphone apps while I wait, and discovered the doctor is running 30 minutes late. (Why can't this happen on the days I am running late? ugh!). No biggie though, more time to play. I sat down and was exploring the GeologyWA/OR app, looking at the geologic map and getting information about the local members (mostly alluvium, landslide/lahar, andesite, till and moraine). I found what I was looking for (an olivine-rich vesicular basalt) and went to find the layers that would expose a route to a good collection site. As I played around, I found a good route and destination that I "thought" would be perfect. Happy and very satisfied with myself, I notice the "terrain" layer and activate it while deactivating the geology layer. I went back to the map and as the picture came up all I see is the Goliath!

Now I should have known this was in that location, but I had been so engrossed in the layers and manipulating the map that I hadn't taken note of the map scale in relation to the members I was looking at. I let out an expletive in my frustration (as I'm not tackling that Mt. in winter, nor the general vicinity). -I looked up to see a poor little old man sitting adjacent to me that I hadn't notice sit down, and he had apparently been watching me play with the map , but my language shocked him and I felt pretty embarrassed.  Luckily it was at that moment the nurse called me back, so with a sheepish grin I made a hasty escape! ;0)

Looks like that sample will definitely be a spring/summer collection. On the flip side though, I discovered that there is interbedded arkosic and basaltic sandstone not too far away. I bet that is stunning! I have to say I love this little app, as the geologic map combined with the layers is awesome. I downloaded a few extra layers that were available, such as public lands and geodetic points. If you don't have this app, I think it's well worth the buy- as I find it one of the more useful apps out there. I'd like to use something similar to it on the PC too- just to search out areas and then upload them into my iphone as far as planned paths/routes I want to take. Hmm.. maybe I'll email the dev. about that and see if it can be in an update.



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