Peacock Rock

Peacock Rock, Puget Sound

The water along the shores of Puget Sound was almost dead calm today, and the sun was shining: both relatively rare events here in Seattle.  It seemed a perfect day to prowl the shoreline looking for rocks, esp. where the rising tide washed over the beach, revealing the stones' true colors and patterns.

Along the shore of Lincoln Park is a favorite spot since the strong currents make for good-sized rocks, mostly free of barnacles and other marine life (I prefer to avoid killing things that live on the rocks, and for that reason avoid low tides).

I walked for half a mile along the beach, and my best find was this multi-colored, thinly layered cobble. I brought it home and cut through it.  It has a handsome patterning and wonderful, subtle colors. I haven't tested it for hardness yet, but I'm hoping its hard enough to take a polish. Either way, it's not like anything I've ever seen here before.

Revealed

I am slowly working through the rocks I collected in southern California last month, including some interesting jaspers from the Central Coast. One of my favorite locations, as I have mentioned before, is the stretch of coast between Cayucos and San Simeon. Some of the most colorful, varied, and spectacular jaspers I have ever found were here, a place I am sure to go back to again and again.

Sometimes, I pick up rocks that show very little on the outside, maybe a little color, or the glassiness  of agate or jasper. I don't remember what I saw with this one. It was yellow overall, with the smooth sheen of jasper, but very little patterning on the surface.

Today I cut through it revealed a wonderful variety of patterns, almost like the "Picture Jaspers" I look for every year in the Owyhee canyons of Eastern Oregon.  These are the two cut ends of the same piece, about the size of my fist.  Wonderful.

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.

Going Crazy in California

San Simeon Jaspers - Naturally tumbled

I do a lot of beach-walking around the Northwest where I live, and often find intriguing and worthwhile rocks mixed in with a lot of junk. So you can imagine what a kick it is to stumble on to a place where nearly every stone is colorful, and beautifully patterned. I had heard about the brecciated jaspers of San Simeon Creek, near Cambria, California and seen some beautiful examples (see Hans Gamma's mouth-watering collection ) but nothing prepared me for a walk along the surf-line yesterday. It was like walking through a kaleidoscope...  In less than an hour I had filled up two cloth bags, and I could have spent days there, seeking out the perfect specimens.

an iPhone sample

The location is the small beach area just south of the San Simeon State Park campground. It's only a quick scramble down the slope and out to the beach. Most of the rocks on the beach itself were tumbler-sized. I'm guessing the big specimens must be somewhere up in the Coast Range headwaters of San Simeon Creek and others. But there are also loads of medium-sized rocks (e.g. 1-4 pounds)  up high on the beach, but I didn't have time to carefully go through them. I'll bet there are some winners there.

But for anyone whose idea of a perfect day is to walk along a wild Pacific beach picking up beautiful stones, you would have a hard time finding anything better than San Simeon.

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)

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.