Esoterizona Stones 38

Fluorescent Minerals

Fluorescent calcite from Williamson County, TX.  The bands fluoresce creamy yellow and white (appears more blue in the photos) under short, mid and longwave light.

These fist-sized rocks came from massive boulders unearthed by heavy machinery while clearing a new roadbed.  When cracked open with a sledgehammer, the grimy limestone exterior gave way to the beautiful crystalline banding within.

The fluorescent calcite is also highly phosphorescent.

The banded crystals are even more clear in this piece.

Rockhounding, Texas-style:

Esoterizona Stones 37

Fluorescent Minerals 

Fluorescent minerals from the Tres Hermanas Mountains, Luna Co, NM.

This piece is calcite (white), aragonite (green), and caliche (orange).

Same specimen, white light.

This specimen contains chalcedony and aragonite; both fluoresce green in response to shortwave UV.  Portions of the aragonite also fluoresce yellow-white, and are phosphorescent.  The chalcedony is emdedded in the matrix, upper left.

Same specimen, white light.  The clusters of aragonite crystals make these easy to spot in daylight, but not all of them have strong fluorescent response.

Orange caliche and a green that could be aragonite or also caliche.

Same specimen, white light.

Fossil Hunting in the Texas Hill Country

Looking upstream on Ward's Creek, about 80 miles west of San Antonio.

Downstream - water levels were unusually high following a recent winter storm.

Even so, fossils were still evident in the ledges of the limestone creek bed.

Classified the Glenrose Formation, these creatures date from the Cretaceous Period, about 100 million years ago.

A section of Nerinea sp. fossil still encased with matrix.

Another section of Nerinea, an extinct sea snail with a long, horn-shaped shell.

Known locally as the "Tarpley Tornado Snail."

Tylostoma sp, another extinct marine gastropod.

Cretaceous fossil clam.

The best find of the day was this large plate of fist-sized snail shells.

Blue Quartz

Blue quartz phenocrysts in rhyolite from a highway road-cut near Llano, TX.

Locally the material is known as "llanite," as it is unique to the area.

Snow & Lava in New Mexico

Snowy Sierra Oscura Mountains behind the Carrizozo Malpais, aka Valley of Fires.

The ~5000-year-old lava flow had recently weathered "Blizzard Goliath."

When fire meets ice ...

Hard Rock Mining in Hansonburg

For $20, the Blanchard Rock Shop in Bingham, NM will let you collect on their claim.

Main adit of the old baryte mine.  Naturally, someone has cut a hole in the barricade.

The bench of rock running diagonally through the picture is a seam of baryte, fluorite, and galena.  The small opening of the pocket is just visible above the chisels.

Close-up view of the pocket - the fluorite crystals are blue cubes, the baryte are white-orange blades, and galena are metallic grey.  The scoring in the rock around the handle of the hammer is in preparation to remove a plate of crystals from the pocket behind it.

A sample of fluorite, baryte, and cerussite chiseled out of the matrix.