Bloom Time 2

Echinopsis spp. (var. robinsoniana)

Mine Warp

Reinforced mine portal with bat gate, Tyndall mining district. (Santa Cruz County)

Esoterizona Stones 7

Wulfenite (Pinal County)

Crystal formation on granite matrix (Pinal County)

Chalcopyrite (Pima County)

Car Wash

Flintknapping

Flintknapping is a type of tool manufacturing technology that is thousands of years old. By selecting materials that will fracture in a predictable fashion, such as obsidian, basalt, or chert, stones can be purposefully shaped into any number of useful tools, such as knives, scrapers, axe heads, or projectile points. Highly siliceous, Hertzian cones of force.

Obsidian core showing before and after fracture.

Traditional tools: hammerstone, antler billet, and antler tine pressure-flaker.

Flake cutting tool and projectile point.

The cutting edge of the obsidian flake is sharper than a surgical 

scalpel, and slices effortlessly through tough rawhide leather.

Norge Door

 

Early 1940s era Norge refrigerator door. Found at a location in the Mammoth mining district (Pinal County) known to have been active between the years 1915 and 1941.

As advertised in a 1945 edition of the Saturday Evening Post, Norge is

"the world-famous 'cold-maker' that took needless cost and confusion out of electric refrigeration." With such features as "Night Watch, a sort of second conscience that remembers to defrost for you every night; the vegetable-keeping Hydrovoir; the meat-preserving Coldpack; and the Lazilatch, which requires only a caress to spring open the door for you -- all of them time-tested and time-proved, not one a 'whimsy' or fad of the moment ... each is a better product for a better world." As you can see ...

 [italics reproduced as printed in original advertisement]

Mine Beams

Collapsing wooden-timbered portal.

The black-blue patch front and center is bat guano.

There was a lot more inside. No bats though.

Another portal being reclaimed by the mountain.

A huge interior stope supported by this sturdy column.

Timber jumble and more bat guano.

Vertical air shaft with crossbeams.

Mines in the Oracle District (Pinal County)