I can't find the main rocks thread and I don't wanna spam it up anyway, so! Pictures of the shinies I got over the weekend! (Local mineralogy society had a show, went and blew most of my spare change :'D) Apologies for some of the blurry photos, phone camera is... not the best. Pinging @Wiwaxia @Aviari and @Imoyram since y'all seemed to be interested in the other thread. Spoiler: Roughs Bitty baby topazes, more yellow than the camera wanted to pick up. Biggest (bottom) is maybe half a centimeter long? The Mystery. I have completely forgotten what these were being sold as. Mother insists it's spessartine garnet, but most of the crystals are more tabular than garnets tend to grow, so. I am dubious. Prehnite. Ruby. Red amber. Ametrine. Aragonite. Calcite probably? I can't recall exactly what this was being sold as, but calcite sounds right. More to come, apparently there's an image limit on posts.
Spoiler: Tumbled Smoky quartz, a little less yellow than the photo would like you to think. Snowflake obsidian. Kyanite. Peridot. Prehnite with epidote inclusions. Rutilated quartz, with bonus Mystery Black Inclusions. Ametrine. Celestine. Chalcedony with unidentified inclusions. Final post incoming.
Spoiler: Not Actually Crystals Fossilized shark teeth, species wasn't marked. A folded-up trilobite, pictures of butt and snoot. Some sort of fossil, I've completely forgotten what this guy even was. Came with the pendant hole pre-punched. Opalized ammonite. Petrified wood. Ammonite pendant. Another ammonite. Bismuth! Camera gave me a choice between "accurate colors" and "clear focus," so here we are. Colors are far more vibrant in person. Tadaaaa!
That would be an orthocone (straight) nautiloid. I agree that the red tabular one really doesn't look like garnet, at least not from that picture. Try scratching some shit with it, see if you can ballpark its hardness? Also, nice prehnites! I fucking love prehnite. Tagging fellow rocknerds @TrillianAri @Starcrossedsky in here too.
-camps in thread- i have a very long obsession with pretty rocks in general and quartz in particular. I have a bunch of quartz at home :) there was a time i could NOT come back from an expedition into the wilderness without a rock or handful of rocks in my pocket...i even put a particularly pretty piece on one of our kitty's graves.
@Wiwaxia Thanks for the ID on the fossil! :D Mystery Rock is softer than quartz, harder than prehnite, so... somewhere in the 6.5-7 range? Also apparently kind of brittle, I accidentally snapped one of the smaller crystals off while testing. Whoops. Don't have any material to streak-test on or that'd be my next step, but... any other suggestions?
I WENT TO A ROCK AND MINERAL SHOW THING AND GOT ROOOOCKS Spoiler: Escape Homeworld Rocks cause I'm a dork Tektite (@Acey ) Hematite (@lilacsofthedead ) 2 Carnelians (@prismaticvoid ?) Citrine (@lilacsofthedead ) Spoiler: Other rocks I got Labradorite (technically also EH, but also not really) Opalite Fluorite (blue and purple tumbled) Blue Fluorite (not tumbled, kinda pyramid shaped) Bismuth Spoiler: Unidentified, from a grab bin with no guide Unidentified #1 Unidentified #2 unidentified #3 unidentified #4 unidentified #5 So yeah!! I got a lot of rocks, and had lots of fun! I could put prices up if that interest people, but the total price was like 5 cents under 40$ CAD.
Oh also! If you guys want to take guesses at what the unidentified ones are, please do! Im curious as to what they are! :P
Oooh, I don't think I've seen raw hematite before! I'm used to it being much more metallic-y :3 That is a very nice chunk of Citrine, though - was it expensive? If not, it might be heat-treated amethyst, but still, muy pretty. I can't add anything constructive to the mystery bin, but I think that last one might be blue agate? Which doesn't really narrow it down, but I've got a slice of it hanging in my window and that's what it was sold to me as :)
Seconding "weird agate" on mystery #5, or maybe azurite? I'd expect azurite to show some splotches of malachite (green, same loop pattern as shown in photo) too, but you never know [shrugs]
It was 2$ CAD, but they had like, trays of the same rocks. (Only some of them, not every rock had a tray, that would be ridiculous) and you could pick rocks form the tray for 2$ a piece, or one, depending on the rock. The citrine and carnelians were 2$ a rock, but I think the opal its was just 1$. They are all pretty small though, so it makes sense. I doubt anything in the grab bin would be fancy, so agate might work. They had other displays with azurite, so I doubt it. (They had like, hot pink rocks in the grab bin. I looked at them and went "..............those must be dyed")
Oh yeah! 1, 2, and 3 are all somewhat translucent in parts, when you hold them up to light. That might help with identification, idk.
*necros thread because ROCKS* I believe your mystery red rock is vanadinite! It tends to grow in tabular clusters like that, and the red is definitely right for it. The grab bag rocks are almost certainly agates, on account of agate is an umbrella term for cryptocrystalline silica minerals, and possibly dyed. They're all great though, congrats on your haul!
Mmmm if I were in WA I would grab some pix of the pretty stones I have, but sadly they didn't make it out to IL with me. I have a couple of very pretty opals, some nice labradorite, a peridot, and some others. Lots of agate and various quartzes, some geodes, an amber chunk with a buggy in it. My dad has some cool rocks too, he majored in geology and lives to bring home things he finds.
