Back to the Variolites

Variolites, Olympic Peninsula, WA

I was back on the Elwha River again yesterday, documenting the amazing restoration project underway there after the removal of two old, salmon-proof dams.

(To learn more, go to:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elwha_Ecosystem_Restoration)

In the meantime, however, I always had an eye out for one of my favorite rocks - the Variolite, a rare altered basalt associated with the Crescent Formation.

This is not a lapidary stone - it does not take a good polish, but it is rare and unusual enough, that I collect them whenever I see them. In France, they are considered medicinal and just quite possibly spiritual. Who knew?

Back from the Dead

Olympic Orbicular "Poppy" Jasper

No, I haven't vanished off the face of the earth. Attentive readers may notice that I haven't posted anything here since October. The fact is, I have been traveling most of that time on non-rock business. Now that I am home again, it is pretty cold and rainy for field trips. So I am spending most of my free time slabbing some of the rocks I collected last summer.

Among these are two good looking samples of Orbicular Jasper, often referred to as "Olympic Poppy Jasper". This kind of rock, associated with basalt deposits around the Olympic Peninsula. They are not particularly hard to find - one of the best locations is Rialto Beach on the Pacific Coast, where you can pick up a few pockets full of jasper pebbles in less than an hour.

These two are from some other locations where I have found slightly larger chunks, some of them slab-worthy.  I will post more as I catch up with cutting.

Skokomish Obsession

Orbicular Jasper, Skokomish River

Somebody stop me. I have made two trips now to the Skokomish River looking for orbicular jasper. Today was a beauty, sunny and warm, and the river was running gin clear (see photo below). Good conditions for looking for jasper. As before, there are loads of interesting jaspers on this river, but very few have well-defined red orbs, so you spend a lot of time picking up stones, and then discarding them.

This one was high and dry on the gravel bar, and jumped out because of its vivid color.

I found others in the water, as in the photo below. The only trouble is...you can't see the water. Believe it or not, these rocks are under a smooth sheet of water, e.g. just about perfect for scanning for rocks. And surrounded by drably colored rocks, the red jasper almost jumps out at you!

The Skokomish Runs clear in August

Skokomish Jasper

Skokomish River Gravel Bars

I set out this morning on the trail of poppy/orbicular jasper on the South fork of the Skokomish River.  It is only about a two-hour drive for me, and an easy day out. I used to go salmon fishing on the Skoko many years ago, and not been back in several decades. I was tempted this time by posts made by a fellow NW Rockhound Charley Price on his blog : Compass Mentus.  Charley recently posted about finding orbicular jasper on the Skoko, so I thought I would give it a try.

I hiked in about 1.5 miles on the Skokomish River Trail which begins at Brown Creek Campground, some 16 miles upriver (mostly paved).  It is a steep up and down (and VERY steep at the end with whatever you have collected on your back!) but eventually you get access to the river, which runs very clear, and has lots of interesting rock to look through. I kept my eye out for really bright orange-red rocks which is usually a tip-off for jasper.

Orbicular Jasper (on left) and another type

I came out with a backpack of about 35-40 pounds - most of it without clear orbs, but a few nice pieces.
I would say it's definitely worth another trip sometime and exploring further upstream.  However, I have to say that the cougar warning sign at the trailhead had me looking over my shoulder!  ("Never Hike Alone" it says...)

Another thing Charley tipped me off to was the presence of some truly weird pieces of mudstone, eroding out of a cliff at the water's edge. For reasons that are not entirely clear to me, these pieces are in some pretty wacky shapes, but are hard enough to make it home intact.  Something for the grandchildren at the very least...

Mudstone animal : Platypus?

All in all, a nice day out in bright overcast 75 degree weather. Pretty much perfect!

Poppies Transformed

A few months ago, a reader was kind enough to share with me his location for Olympic Poppy Jasper. He  generously took time out of his day not only to lead me to the outcrop, and but to help search for specimens on my behalf. I came home with a boxload  of rough - and only now have started polishing it.  This two-inch piece is small, but with a brilliant color, and striking, naturalistic shape. Needless to say, I'm thrilled.
To be honest, none of the material looked that impressive when I got it home. These scarlet poppies do not normally form massive  blocks: most of what we found were modest little clusters in otherwise rather uninteresting basalt. But trimmed and tumbled, they really pop.
But the best thing about the day was the unselfish attitude of my host. I will remember that every time I look at these handsome stones.

Discovery Bay, Olympic Peninsula

I've been in the office a lot lately, or visiting with family - always wonderful - so I haven't been out much looking for rocks. But on a drive back from Port Angeles yesterday I spent a happy hour along the western shore of Discovery Bay. This is one of my favorite shorelines for rocks, since there are rarely any waves, and the diversity is as great as anywhere in the northwest. The site is near the Gardiner boat ramp - a little tricky to find but worth looking for on a falling tide, when the cobble beach is still wet. This makes identifying interesting specimens that much easier. (Best of all is a rainy day, when EVERYTHING is wet and shiny...)

This may not look like much, but as a geologist, I find it tells a pretty interesting story, with bits of green stone in a speckled matrix. I'll know more when I polish it.

Geology 101 Redux

Variolite "Cross-section" - Elwha River

One of my favorite finds from my search for variolites on Sunday was this fellow. About 6" inches long, it shows the distinctive feldspar "dots" of all variolites, but grading dramatically in size from the bottom to the top.  Varioites are believed to form inside "pillow lavas" or basaltic lava that erupts underwater, forming unmistakable round structures visible in many NW roadcuts (especially on the Olympic peninsula). My sources tell me that the smaller dots form as the edges of the pillows, which cool more quickly, while the larger dots grow in the slower-cooled, better-insulated interior of the rock.

This makes sense to me, but whatever the explanation, I thought this sample was particularly cool...

Oddballs and Snowcones

Jasper with graceful seam, Discovery Bay, WA

Sometimes, when walking the shoreline looking for rocks,  you stumble onto complete oddballs - rocks so weird that they just jump out at you. That was the case for this one. I was walking the western shoreline of Discovery Bay, a place I'd never been before, picking up odds and ends during a brief, but intense, hailstorm. I found lots of the usual: bits of quartz, agate, red jasper.
Then I came across this thing. I think it's a piece of jasper with a white quartz seam running through it, but not quite like anything I've ever seen before, sort of like a melting scoop of ice cream. The bold pattern jumped out at me, and it went straight into my collecting bag. Can't wait to polish it and see what that reveals.

Return of the River

Variolites,  Elwha River

One of the biggest things happening in the Northwest this year has been the beginning of two dam removals from the Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula. It is a huge project, the largest dam removal effort ever undertaken in the US and promises to restore both a spectacular river and the salmon runs that used to inhabit it.  For more information on the project, see here.

I had a chance to visit a part of the river yesterday that has re-emerged from the lake that once covered it;  gravel bars have appeared that I have never seen before!  And those gravels were covered with a rock that I have been tracking for years - Variolites (see previous posts here). I have been convinced that one major source for this rock is in the Elwha Valley. Now after finding dozens within a small area, I am convinced of it. I guess the trick will be to travel upstream until I can't find them anymore - and then look in between!

These things have no gem value, or any other reason for being sought, other than personal obsession. Stay tuned.

Patterned Quartzite (?) and Petrified Wood, Olympic Peninsula

I set out this morning to look for a source of variolites, the polka-dotted rock I have posted about in the past, and which probably originates in the basalts of the Crescent Formation on the Olympic Peninsula. I tracked down a couple possible source areas - and found no evidence of variolites. In fact, I didn't find a single one, which is unusual - I have found them in a variety of locations along the Olympic coast. This would suggest that the source is somewhere further west than where I was looking today.  So another expedition is clearly required...

However, I did get some time to poke around the coast near Sequim, where I found - among many other things - these two beach cobbles: a stained quartzite (or Jasper?) and a handsome piece of petrified wood. Not bad for a quick beach walk.

What the Glacier Dragged In

Unknown Rock, Puget Sound beach

By now you will understand that patrolling the beaches of Puget Sound for unusual stones is one of my favorite spare-time activities. This rock helps explain why. I spent an all-too-short half hour on the beach recently, not finding anything special when this one caught my eye, full of stripes and marbling.  Agate, maybe?  Or something softer like travertine or diatomaceous earth?  I need to test the hardness.

Whatever it is, it is unlike anything I have ever found on the local beaches. Who knows where it's from? My hope, in fact, is that someone somewhere seeing these posted pictures will recognize the rocks from their part of the Northwest. It would be fun to know where the glaciers found them...

A Map of the World

Agate/Jasper, Puget Sound

Another pebble from the beaches near my home, this one reminds me of a slightly wobbly planet with golden continents surrounded by a deep blue ocean.  Hey, you've gotta have imagination.

Meanwhile, I leave Friday for a month in Brazil. No, not rockhounding, but you better believe I'll be keeping an eye out.

The Corner of the Eye

Petrified Wood,  Lincoln Park, Seattle

A walk on a beach used to be all about the view: not anymore.  Start me walking on a cobble beach, like so many here in Puget Sound country, and it's all I can do not to stare down at my feet as I walk. It's usually better to do this on my own, rather than impose my distractions on friends and family, who might wonder why I never look up...or speak...

Sometimes, it is nearly impossible to stop scouring the gravel for something interesting. In the great tradition of treasure-hunters and fishermen there is always the forlorn hope that something miraculous is about to happen: your pan will reveal a gold nugget, a massive fish will bite, or (in this case) a beautiful, unexpected stone will suddenly appear at your feet.

Consider this: there may be several million cobbles on a hundred yards of beach. So how do you train your eyes, and your reflexes, to ignore the multitudes in favor of the unique?  I have no idea. I look for bright color, of course, or a striking pattern. I'm guessing it was the latter of those that drew my eye to this thing, off to one side. No reds or blues to catch my attention, just an eye-catching irregularity that made it jump out.

There is a maxim in beach-rock-hunting : a dry rock is, by and large, an ugly rock. That's why it makes sense to patrol the water's edge, where the surf has dampened the rocks, revealing the true color and pattern of the otherwise gray shapeless cobbles that cover the beach. (You can also go on a falling tide, or better yet, a misty day.)  This one I liked it so much, even dry, that I couldn't wait for a wave, and simply gave it a quick lick - sanitation be damned!

This salty exercise revealed a small, slightly glassy agate-like stone, but with a distinctly non-agate structure.  Who knows what it is or, as always, where it originated?  But it's one I was delighted to find.

Beach Cannonballs

Concretion, Strait of Juan de Fuca, Washington

Along many of the beaches of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, these striking stone eggs (and spheres and even weirder shapes) weather out of the siltstone cliffs. They are concretions, composed of cemented sediments that grow within softer existing strata. They sometimes form around hard objects: including other stones or in the most exciting cases, around fossil animals like crabs.

I found this one (about 9" tall) on a recent trip out to the straits, and I brought it home to break open with my grandson - with the hope that it would reveal something interesting inside. The first challenge, of course, was simply breaking the thing open. After failing to make a dent with my rock hammer, we resorted to copying our neighborhood crows...and tossed it off our deck onto the street.  Bingo!

It broke, of course, but we didn't find anything obvious inside. Too bad.  Still, I'm pretty sure Theo thought the coolest part was just busting it open... 

Broken open - no Fossils

Fractured Jasper

Fractured Jasper Pebble, Puget Sound

Jasper is one of the most common, colorful rocks among the beach cobbles of Puget Sound. It is composed of micro-crystalline quartz (e.g. its crystal structure is too tiny for the eye) and therefore is very hard and takes a nice polish.  Often the samples I find are broken, fractured or badly-shapen.

This one, however, had both a nice shape, and a handsome fracture pattern similar to the "crackle" in pottery glazes. Despite its symmetrical shape, I did not cut it, but simply polished the stone as I found it, which rounds out sharp edges, but otherwise changes the rock very little. To be honest, I enjoy these "natural" shapes much more than cut cabochons so popular in the jewelry business.  It will never be a necklace, but I enjoy it all the same.

Rock Revealed

Unknown rock, polished

A month ago, I posted about a trip to the outer coast of the Olympic Peninsula, and about the variety of rocks I found among the beach cobbles - most specifically this one.  I noticed it as distinct from all the rest even in its rough, straight-off-the-beach state. (see July 28 photo) .

Now, a month later, it has gone through the polishing cycle, and its really unusual patterning has been revealed.  It is hard, and has taken a good polish, indicating something silica-rich (rather than a softer, sedimentary rock) but beyond that, I haven't got a clue. A strange jasper formed at the boundary of two rock types?  The multi-colored zigzag pattern which is its most striking feature, makes it look like it was liquid at one point.

Anyhow, whatever its name - it's a beauty. But like most of the others I find, from an unknown source.

app. 3" long

Mystery Solved... "Variolites"

Variolite cobble, Crescent Formation, Olympic Peninsula WA

For several years I have puzzled over the origin of this stone type, which is a remarkably common component of beach gravels around the Olympic Peninsula. (See my earlier post of July 19) It is so common, in fact, that it argues for a local source.  I haven't found that source yet - but I think I have discovered what it is.
The answer came from Scott Babcock, Professor of Geology at Western Washington State University, who has studied the Crescent Formation extensively.  He proposed that they were something called a "variolite" said to be a metamorphosed basalt (possibly pillow lava).  He sent me Googling for the quite-famous (though not to me) variolites of Durance, France.  Bingo.
A quick look at some photos of the Durance rocks was all I needed - these are clearly related.  (And there is a LOT of  basalt in the Crescent Formation here.)
As I said, the outcrop source for this rock is not known, at least that I've been able to discover, but maybe one of these days...

Variolite from Maguelon, France (www.variolite.fr)

Further note : I was also able to confirm the name, and provenance of this rock with Rowland Tabor, Geologist Emeritus at the US Geological Survey and author of the Guide to the Geology of Olympic National Park. He refers to it in his book (page 67-68) as "globular devitrification structures."  Wow, that's a mouthful.  However, he wasn't able to confirm a bedrock source. That, I guess, I am going to have to find for myself!

Petite Poppies

Orbicular or "Poppy" Jasper, Olympic Peninsula, WA

I first stumbled onto this rock as an intriguing pebble on a beach along the shores of Puget Sound, covered with tiny red orbs against a dark matrix. Only later did I learn that they are referred to as Olympic "Poppy" Jasper, from Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Although some sources (like Jackson..see below) describe an outcrop of the stone just west of Lake Crescent, most people find this along the coastal beaches. These were all from a brief walk along Rialto Beach just north of the Quileute River near Forks, WA (Home of the "Twilight" stories)

Most are small and uncommon, but as you train your eyes for them along these cobble beaches, they start to jump out at you. I filled a bucket full of them, although many are badly cracked and pitted and will probably not take a good polish.  These were some of my favorites which have been tumbled for a month or so - yet still show some cracking and pitting - testimony to the brittle nature of the basalt they weathered out of.

Still, they are handsome little stones that I am happy to have found. Someday I may go look for the outcrop, but for now, these will do.

Mystery Rocks

Mystery Rocks, Olympic Peninsula

I would love to figure out what these rocks are. I have found them repeatedly among the beach gravels of the northern Olympic Peninsula, along the Straits of Juan de Fuca, but have not managed to figure out where they are from - or what they are.  (I found them in many locations but they are especially abundant around the mouth of the Elwha River)

They are brittle but soft enough that they do not take a polish, despite the superficial resemblance to the Orbicular Jaspers (with red spots) found in the same region.  But the raised dots are odd, and I can't think what rock type these might represent.  Anyone recognize them? The matrix is grey-green and apparently crystalline, but whatever it is, it's a really distinctive rock.

No mineral value, of course, and no one is going to make jewelery from this material, but if there is a geologist out there that recognizes it, or where it outcrops, I'd love to hear about it....

POSTSCRIPT : One reader asked whether the blebs are just surface marks, e.g. barnacle scars, but I broke some open and the spots are distributed throughout the rock.

POSTSCRIPT TWO :  MYSTERY SOLVED 8/26 !  More on a later post...