Winter Beaches

Banded Jasper or...?

The beach below my house is primarily sand, esp. during the quiet months of summer, when the surf is at a minimum. But in winter, storming winds and tides throw rocks up onto the beaches, and right now there is a thick layer of pebbles at the tideline. This is perfect for sampling the extraordinary diversity of rocks that characterizes this ancient glacial landscape.

This good-sized cobble attracted my attention today. It was heavy and glass-smooth,  typically a sign of a hard rock like agate or jasper, but with some lovely green and brown banding.  I haven't seen anything like it here before - but that is almost always the case here : rocks deposited on my beach are likely remnants of boulders dropped by glaciers here 10, 000 years ago.

In any case, I popped it into the tumbler - and in a week or so, I'll be able to get a clear look at it. Then it will either go into polishing - or get tossed back onto the beach.

Alki Beach,  New Year's Eve Eve, 2013

Out of the Tumbler

Beach Cobbles, San Simeon, CA

As I posted back in March, I spent a pretty mind-blowing day collecting on the beaches near San Simeon, California, on my way up the coast. Why was it so great?  Because nearly every rock on the beaches there is of something interesting, whether a brecciated jasper, or an interesting agate, or some things that I don't even know the names for. But whatever they are, they have loads of color and striking patterns and polish beautifully in the tumbler.

They do especially well in the tumbler since they are already well-rounded by the wave action. In fact, I usually skip the first coarse grit step in the polishing process and go directly to the finer 120/220 silicon carbide.

I'm still processing rocks I found months ago, and by the time I'm done, it'll be time to head South again to find some more!

Area 54

Misc. Jasper & Agate, Area 54

Some rockhounding locations are in the guidebooks. Others are not, either by the author's choice, or because they are new locations, found just as others are exhausted by hundreds - if not thousands - of collectors.  This place was not one I'd ever read about, except on a rockhounding club website. I don't know where it got it's name - Area 54 - but it does give the place a sense of mystery: it sounds like there should be aliens or UFO's around.  All I can say is, I didn't see any...

The truth is, I don't know exactly where Area 54 is, or at least where the club trips go. It is somewhere on the road into the Panoche Hills in Fresno County, California. I never found the exact spot they described, but it doesn't matter. You can look anywhere in a 5 mile radius, or anywhere along that road and you will find colorful, sometimes stunning, material. The pieces I've posted here just came out of the tumbler - but I have much more.

My advice?  Next time you're driving south on I-5 in central California, take a short detour and explore this canyon.  You won't be sorry!

FOLLOW-UP NOTE: June 15.  I've finally gotten these stones all the way through the polishing process, and sadly, they don't polish well. Most have a largely matte finish with only a few seams that took a good polish. I might have worried that I had done something wrong in the process (such as contaminating the batch with heavy grit somehow) but there were a few agates from elsewhere in the batch and they took a perfect polish - so I know it's the stones. So if they are jasper, they are a somewhat softer one.

Cayucos Jasper

Brecciated Jasper

I'm still poring over the 100 lbs of stones I brought back from California last week (the back of my car riding very low). I had a chance to cut open some of the larger pieces, many of which are of a  brecciated jasper that is common in this part of the Coast range (and several other parts of California).  This one is about 8" inches across and shows a fractured yellow-red jasper with a milky quartz filling.

Not a great picture, I admit, but you get the idea. Not sure how the quartz will polish, but we'll give it a try.  The diversity of the rocks along this coast is truly remarkable.  I suggest walking up Toro Creek near Cayucos, or for the best material, head straight to San Simeon Beach. Wow.

Beach Surprise : "Plume Agate?"

Beach agate, West Seattle

It's been a while since I was out on the beaches near home - blame it on cold weather and too many buckets already full of rocks, waiting for the polisher.

But on a handsome sunny winter day, I hit the beaches near Alki Point. I am always attracted by color and design, but especially if there is any sense of transparency, e.g. that glass-like quality that suggests "agate."

Here's one I found yesterday, an already well-rounded, naturally polished agate. My first thought was that it was what is known as a plume agate, in which impurities grow into the quartz often in lovely, lacy patterns. But when I took a close look at this, it does not have the typical "plume" patterns, but instead appears to be some sort of brecciated rock into which quartz has filled the gaps. Hard to tell what the green stuff is, but it's clearly fractured and shattered. Now, of course, it is suspended in the quartz matrix. Not sure what to call it, but it's handsome nonetheless.

I'm Back...with a Mystery

Mysterious Rock, Puget Sound

I have not posted for quite sometime, not having had much time - or weather - for rockhounding. But every chance I get to walk on the beaches below my house, I typically find something. In this case, a few weeks ago, I spotted this interesting cobble (about 2" long) and threw it in the tumbler. The polish revealed a fascinating pattern which I can't identify or explain.  Any ideas? A kind of agate?

(Click on photo to see a little bigger)

Owyhee Agate Vein

Agate vein, Succor Creek, Oregon

Although most of what I found in the Succor Creek area of the Owyhee mountains earlier this summer was jasper, I did come out with some other interesting pieces. One of the most intriguing was this thin agate seam cutting through another rock I don't recognize. The agate is bright and colorful, and completely unlike anything else I have found in that area. Who knows where it came from, but the Owyhee country has so many spectacular rocks, both agate and jasper, that nothing should be surprising...

I'll be heading out there again next month for a week of rockhounding. Can't wait.

Rialto Beach Redux

Poppy Jasper, Agate, and....? , Rialto Beach

Last year I made a pilgrimage to Rialto Beach, not far from Forks, Washington (aka "Twilight" Town) to beach comb for orbicular "poppy" jasper. This has been a well-known location for jasper beach cobbles for decades, and every time I'm in the neighborhood, I make a point of stopping by.

I spent a happy hour or two looking for jasper, but also stumbled onto some other nice things as well - some petrified wood, and at least one piece of yellow plume agate. It takes a while to train your eye here: the weather was uncharacteristically dry, so all the beach stones had that pale, scuffed look, making them very hard to identify. I did carry a water spray bottle to test stones -and licked a few - but after a while, I began to see the characteristic smoothness of the harder rocks (mixed in with a lot of rough-surfaced sedimentary rocks, the most common thing on our outer coast).

In the end, I got a nice stash of poppies, and some other things I'll look forward to polishing. Always a great place - and the best part is,  after next winter's storms (profound on this wild coast) there will be a whole new crop of rocks thrown up onto the beach.

Gravel Galore, Rialto Beach

Out of the Tumbler

Cayucos Jasper - Revealed

Tumbling stones, esp. hard jaspers and agate, takes patience.... and I am not a patient man. So when a batch's time in the grit is up (and maybe a few hours early) I open it with all the enthusiasm of a kid on Christmas morning.

This batch was one I particularly looked forward to since recent months have generated some exceptional collecting opportunities. A sharp reader will recognize these, for example, as polished Cayucos jasper : I posted some of the rough in this blog on May 2. All are of red jasper, with quartz/agate intrusions. Handsome stuff.

Also included in this batch were some pieces of Idaho Japer-Agate I collected in late June (see my July 4 post). One of them came out of the tumbler today with some lovely patterns and colors.

Idaho Jasp-agate

Surprises

By now, you will realize that my idea of heaven is to wander along local beaches picking up interesting stones and trying to piece together the stories behind them. I often fill a bag within an hour or so, and only weeks, if not months, later get to polishing them. So I can maybe be forgiven for not exactly remembering where I found this one, which emerged from the tumbler today. It is of a free-form yellow jasper together with what looks like a pinkish agate. Pink agate?  Never heard of it before - and as always, I have no idea where this rock originated, thousands of years before it landed on the beach where I found it. Yes, it would be nice to know: I'm guessing there are more like it...

Return to Succor Creek

Succor Creek Canyon,  E. Oregon

I've come out to eastern Oregon/Idaho for a few days to do some photography - and also to do some rockhounding in one of my favorite locations - Succor Creek in the Owyhee Mountains.  It is a beautiful place, and a terrific location for jasper, agate and petrified wood. I have done well with all three, simply by poking around the extensive gravel bars along Succor Creek.
Last time I was here it was a month or two earlier in the year, and the water was much higher, faster and colder - so getting to any gravel was hard. But now the river has dropped - but the fierce summer heat hasn't hit yet.
I spent 4 hours out there today, and came back with about 100 pounds of tumbler material. Most was found just along about 200 yards of overflow river bed - see photo below. I am really pleased with some of the picture jasper pieces and some large chunks of wood.
Every time I come here, I plan to explore the hills around the creek, which is presumably where all this stuff comes from - but I do so well just scavenging the river bed that I've never gone much farther afield.
I'll post pictures of some of my better finds when I get home this weekend.

Gravel beds, Succor Creek

California Treasures

Cayucos Jasper, California

In a post a few weeks ago, I reported that I spent a wonderful few hours exploring the beaches near Cayucos, California, in what turned out to be a mother lode of jasper of every pattern and description. Many were so beautifully rounded that they needed little tumbling, and just the addition of a polish to make them stand out. Well, I finished a batch today - and they are beauties.

There are brecciated jaspers (apparently common along in coast range in this area) and a variety of other colors and patterns. It was probably the single most productive few hours I've ever spent chasing rocks.

Having said that, the beach is NOT the best place for collectors looking for slab-worthy chunks of the stuff - these are all small, and really only fit for those who are content with tumblers. I am one of those, and I am delighted with what I found.  Too bad it's a thousand miles south of here!

Right off the Beach

Many of the stones I gather are truly "diamonds in the rough," rocks whose pattern and color you can really only guess at until the tumbler has scoured off the weathering crust, the scars, cracks and staining.  Then there are the stones that appear, at first glance, as if they have already been polished and shaped.
That was the case with this one, a reddish-purple stone that looks like a translucent jasper/agate. It has a glassy character, but also a granular texture, along with random black dots and faint stripes.

If you have any ideas what this might be, I'd love to know. In the meantime, it is simply a lovely stone of an unusual color.

California Discoveries

Cayucos Jasper, California

I drove to California last week for work, but along the way poked around some new rockhounding areas, specifically the Central California coast near San Luis Obispo. Several good locations were listed on the websites of local rock and gem clubs, so I thought I'd give them a try. In the end, I came away with a lot of terrific material like this red and green jasper,  from one of the beaches around Cayucos.

Really, there was agate and jasper scattered all along the shoreline in this area, and given more time, I would have wanted to scour the surrounding hills for outcrops and exposures. Maybe on another trip.
I also didn't have time to make it up to San Simeon Creek, which is supposed to be pretty productive as well. Still, I was delighted with what I found in just a short time, and look forward to a chance to go back at some point.

A Polished Gem

I was photographing birds along the shore this morning (see below) but out of the corner of my eye noticed a shiny, rounded pebble with an unusual pattern. I pulled it out of the sand, and rinsed it off. What was immediately obvious was that it was heavy, hard and already very smooth - as if it had already been through a tumbler (which, I suppose you could say, it had).  I will polish it further but hopefully this striking pattern is not just on the surface and will survive the experience.

Speaking of surviving the experience : here's a gull trying to swallow a starfish on the beach below my house this morning. Amazingly, he finally got it down - but he didn't look altogether happy with the decision.

A Morning's Work

Agate, Jasper and.....?

A half hour walk on the beach near my house proved very productive today - ending up with a bag I could barely manage to carry back to the car.  Some of the highlights are pictured here - a banded jasper, a moss agate, a petrified wood and some other things I wouldn't dare to name... All will go into the tumbler this weekend - and if I remember, I'll post the polished forms next week.

Hiding From The Wind

Polka Dot Jasper/Agate, Elliot Bay

The wind has been blowing A LOT lately, which makes collecting difficult along my close-by locations along eastern Puget Sound. Hard to see much, or stay dry, when waves are breaking along these normally-placid shores!  Happily, I know one secret cobble beach, on a protected shore of Elliot Bay, where I often find some interesting things.

So on a recent blustery day, I spent a few minutes picking along this quiet beach and found some nice things, including this unusual polka-dot jasper-agate. I've never seen anything like it in the area but, as  always, its actual provenance is a mystery.  But I'll certainly be on the lookout for more!

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...

Complex Stories

Banded Agate/Jasper, Olympic Peninsula

When I studied geology at the University of Washington, my favorite class was one called "Structure" in which we tried to piece together the sequence of events that have altered rocks and landscapes by reading the stories within them. If one continuous layer in a sedimentary rock is offset along a plane, for example, you could infer that a fault had shifted AFTER the deposition of the layers. (see the faulted jasper in my August 25 post). Sometimes, however, multiple events can overlap, creating a very confusing picture.

That's what's happening with this rock, which I found among beach cobbles on the Pacific Coast of the Olympic Peninsula. I'll call it an agate/jasper (or "jaspagate" as I've seen it written elsewhere) which is simply another name for a rock that has features of both: the transparency of agate and the opacity of jasper.  Whatever you want to call it, this small pebble seems to tell the story of fracture and fill: an existing red jasper was fractured, possibly several times, and injected with quartz solution - both clear and vivid red. How did this happen?  I have no idea, but whatever the story, its this complexity that helps create this handsome visual pattern, one with tantalizing hints of the paintings of Jackson Pollock.

Back to Mt. Rainier

Sunset and clouds on Mt. Rainier

 It takes about 3 hours to get from my house to Paradise, on the 5000 foot level of Mt. Rainier.  I dashed down there yesterday hoping to get some shots of wildflowers, which so far are about 6 weeks behind their normal bloom schedule. Well, after hiking up to my favorite meadow, I found the flowers just emerging from under the snow. If they bloom at all this year, it will be a miracle.

Driving home, I made a short detour to have a look at the Greenwater River just northeast of the volcano. There are few gem quality rocks on the mountain itself: too young and too active. But the volcano we see today rose through much older volcanics, many of which produce large quantities of agate and jasper. There are a couple of well-known areas for agate in the hills above the Greenwater, but today I decided to just poke around the riverbed to see what was washing down from the surrounding watershed.

In an hour or so I had a bag full of small agates, some jasper and even a nice piece of petrified wood.  But the find of the day was this good-sized multi-colored agate which I pried out of the riverbed. I haven't decided what to do with it yet - it seems criminal to whack it with my sledgehammer and run the risk of it shattering, so I may wait and cut it open - or polish the whole thing with the hope that it will reveal some nice patterns.

Agate from Greenwater River