I am shocked that this thread does not yet exist. But anyways, pics, chat, whatever your rock needs be. Enjoy them here.
Okay! I only have two shelves put up atm, but I think I have another shelf or two left to put up. These are my favorites though.
My cousin in Nevada was going to send me a cool rock....I should ask her when she expects to have a chance to send it. I do not currently have any cool rocks, unfortunately.
Danke! ^_^ if anyone wants close up pics of a rock, just ask. I am not terribly knowledgeable about names sadly, but I might do some close ups of my favorites later. Some of these are from my dad's and my sister's collection that I haven't had time to get out til today. Discovered this one rock that shimmers kinda like velvet(I don't even know) in a very specific angle <3 also I found some rocks that are super thin, translucent, and shimmery, which are also awesome.
Pyramid(it really has one really good angle, and sadly is broken on the not visible side ;_;): It is indeed an egg shape! Which is why my fingers are in the shot xD :
So becoming Steven Universe trash might have helped start a new obsession with Pretty Rocks. (Granted, a lot of these I've had for a long time, but still.) Top row: ???, red jasper, ???, peridot (in a little glass bottle), ???, ???, ??? Middle row: Selenite Bottom row: ??? (I think it's agate?), rose quartz (I think), tektite, lapis lazuli (yes, I DID look for the most teardrop-shaped one I could find), amethyst, hematite, ??? If anyone could help me identify the ones I'm confused about I'd appreciate it. :D
Ugh, all my rocks are boxed up in storage right now except a handful of tiny specimens. We have a ton of fossils though. And like three bismuth crystals.
Oh wow, those are all so pretty! Especially that egg, I love all the shapes and patterns! (I am afraid I am not very knowledgeable about geology, so my commentary is pretty much limited to "pretty colors! :D") I was on a trip to the Pacific Northwest coast recently, and found some mildly-interesting rocks. (Not really the best time of year for beach combing, though - I'm told it's better in the winter, when the storms churn things up.) Mostly there were what I am assuming are volcanic rocks with little air pockets, and crystals had formed in some of the cavities. (Zeolites, I think the park ranger said?) I also found one kinda weird one that's pretty plain and I don't know what it is, but I like it anyway. Spoiler: rocks (The photos don't really do this one justice - those rounded crystals are a very pretty pale-periwinkle-blue in real life.) This last one's actually my favorite, despite not having any crystals at all. I have no idea what it is. It's got an odd texture - smooth, but not rounded or glossy. It almost looks like dried clay. I've taken to carrying it around in my pocket as a fidget toy, actually :P
I'm sadly only rock nerding when it comes to making jewelry. If you think I could/should post my materials anyway I could? maybe do it?
Alas, I have misplaced my camera, so I cannot take pictures of my pretty rocks for you, except for my piece of malachite, which I already photographed a while ago seriously, look at that. I fucking love malachite. I've got like two other specimens of it in different crystal habits elsewhere, too. Anyways, I just got my hand sample to ID for my mineralogy course this semester, so y'all will certainly be hearing about it some more in here. At least one of the minerals in there has a pale green streak, which is Interesting. also tagging @Vast Derp because he seriously needs tagged in here
@Acey I'm not a big reddit person in general but this one thread is so excellent, you may find it helpful in identifying the rocks that you are ??? about. . .! https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsthisrock
I still do not have access to a camera, alas, but mineral IDventure continues. At least one of the minerals in my sample (the one with the green streak) fluoresces cobalt blue under UV light. It is being kind of a pain in the ass to identify, though, especially because I can't tell if it has cleavage or not, so today i cut off a corner and tossed it in a steel jaw with some tungsten carbide balls and put it in a shakermadoodle. Which resulted in a lot of noise and some nice pale green-brown rock flour. At some point this week or next, I'm gonna stick the powder in an x-ray diffractometer in the hopes of getting some candidate minerals.
Sure, I'll take a gander for you, @Imoyram. Identifying rocks from photos is the very devil though, so i am less confident in these ID's than I might otherwise be. Gonna drag this over to rocksthread, though, because it isn't really even tangentially witchy at this point, and because rocksthread needs more love. Spoiler: guesses looks like quartz to me yeah, that's tiger's eye. (which is, incidentally, yet another variety of quartz, although it wasn't originally. That "grain" is the asbestiform fibers of the original mineral, which was later chemically replaced by quartz, but kept the super thin fibers. those fibers are what give tiger's eye it's shininess/cat's eye effect/chatoyancy, by the way) Agate's not a bad guess. Almost certainly some kind of quartz. probably quartz i'm gonna guess the name you're looking for is "sodalite" which is my first impulse on this one too, but I am really not confident enough to call it that, so gonna leave it at *shrug* Jasper of some kind, I think. It honestly looks like a chunk of Banded Iron Formation, although it would be Really Fucking Heavy if that were the case. If it's not, then some other kind of jasper, probably. ayup, quartz. if you wanna double-check that, see if it'll scratch glass and other quartzes Dammit I really want to get my hands on this one. It's intriguing, but I really can't ID it at all from that photo. Could be lots of things. whoa damn. That is a nice specimen. Serpentine was my first thought, too, but I would expect to see it more in mostly-serpentine serpentinites, rather than that sort of dun-colored (rhyolite?) matrix, and I'm not sure if it does that really dramatic radial habit thing. Wavellite is infamous for similar green starbursts in that sort of radial habit, so that would be my guess, but I'm not super confident on that. Try getting a second opinion, maybe, or test hardness (should be quite soft, 3-4 on the mohs scale) or looking for cleavage (which i can go into in a bit more detail if you want. yep, some sort of dendritic oxide inclusion in chalcedony/agate/cryptocrystalline quartz/whatever you wanna call it Yeah, can't really tell from the photo, although it's not slate. Might be schist, might be some micaceous sedimentary rock? Those would be where I'd start looking, at least.
@Wiwaxia Thanks! You are really good with rocks! (and from what I can see upthread, a professional?) I think I'll use your guesses for their new names (ie I'll call them what you said they are). Out of curiosity, what is it that makes this rock so interesting? I thought it was cool for the texture, but I was pretty sure I just picked it up outside. Before consulting all yall I thought the dents and stuff was just where other rocks had been, and broken off. also, I could totally try for more/better pictures of this one. If there was any particular angle that you'd like to see (if you can find some way of explaining what angle X) ) hehe thank you! If you read my other post in witchy thread you'd hear the general story for it. Hearing that its a good rock specimen makes me wonder about that classmate. WHy the hell would you (and your fucking parents???) give away such a nice rock? And a few days before he gave me that one, he gave me an amethyst point, really nice, no surrounding rock. we were in grade 3ish though, so I cant use 'trying to impress me" (why would he even want to?? we were on the nice side of "i dont really talk to you") I think I remember his reasoning for giving me these rocks was "my mom found them and you are really into rocks [right now] so here you can have them"
Ah, not quite, just a student so far. Interesting because it could be any one of a number or things and i can't tell which. More pictures wouldn't hurt, but again, IDing rocks and minerals from photos is obnoxious-to-impossible.
Sadly, my rock collection is in storage right now. But my favorite piece is a softball-sized chunk of Nahcolite, the stuff baking soda is made of! It's not a very showy mineral but i love it none the less. (In case you were wondering, it does react to vinegar!)
I was really fucking into rocks as a kid. I still kinda am but I've forgotten a lot of the stuff I memorized back then :( necroing because i found my childhood rock collection while cleaning my room. I sorted them and kept some (mostly the polished ones) but I need to get rid of stuff so I made a pile to set free in the front yard. Spoiler: goodbye friends (large pic)
