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[Kaljaia]

I've been going out in the evenings, when the light isn't great, but have kicked up some interesting things. More 'just interesting' than of lapidary use (also might have run into a snag with my new employers regarding what I can and cannot do with rock from their property... mostly because I'm asking for permission, which no one ever does, which means no one's thought of an answer yet. If the snag sticks, then I'll GPS my way onto local BLM in-holdings and see what's around there.)

But for now, this was the result of an adventure to a construction site, where a new water tower will be built soon.
There's a thick layer of lavender tuff that contains a variety of interesting things. My favorite is the streaks of thin, brilliantly green crystal/mineral exposed by the fractured rock. So far it's all been paper thin. A mineral sample, not a cut-able rock. 'It must be copper' is what comes to mind, but someday I'd love to send a sample and a giant question mark to the folks who test rock and find out what gives it its color.


From the same location, a layer of tiny dendritic crystals. This is going to be an 'office rock.' I found out the person who had my office before me kept toys in it for the village kids, so they all automatically invite themselves in. Opportunity to teach them a little something about the place they live in, I think!



This is from the same place, but it's not native to it. There's an ash terrace on a red fin of upthrust basalt that was graded and graveled for construction 30-odd years ago. This rock was left behind by someone. I found it fractured and carted the other half home 15 years ago; finding the other half right where I thought it should be was refreshing (memory doesn't always line up to reality.) It's a fine-grain river rock with a pale green rind, and the ripples outward from the point of impact are pretty interesting to me.


Our local pictographs:
We're fairly certain they're somewhat real. No guarantee some enterprising kid hasn't added to them, but the very faint and layered geometric patterns are probably authentic (the space ship is up for debate.) Unfortunately they were done on a thin, smooth layer that has since flaked/been chipped off the original basalt monolith (not surprising; these are right beside a dirt track that's been in use for 200 years.)

[packlithic]

The rocks with the dendrites is beautiful.

[lithicbeads]

 This is great stuff , you are keeping us shut -ins halfway sane sharing your adventures. Thank you. Copper may be right. Even the sunstone from Oregon which is of volcanic origin occasionally has copper inclusions.

[Stonemon]

The dendrites are probably manganese oxide. As meteoric water descends through decaying plants and other carbon sources it becomes dilute carbonic acid which in turn dissolves manganese and re-deposits it at depth as temp and pressure change as manganese oxide.
Disclaimer: It has been over 35 years since mineralogy class and there is room for doubt in this one! 
Bill

[Kaljaia]

I'm glad you all are ok with me posting my random adventures! And thanks for the notes on the dendrites! Since that one's now in my office, it'll be useful information to tell people when they ask about it. (Right now everyone gets distracted by the rattlesnake skin...)

[hummingbirdstones]

We love living vicariously through others!     The more adventures and pictures, the better!

[Kaljaia]

Well then I'll just have to post more!

You know you have hard water when just a few years of well overflow makes a measurable layer of mineral deposit. Kids who drink the water here don't break bones or get cavities. (It has been tested for fluoride content and it's safe and low; one well near here was in the 'absurdly high' range and promptly capped off.) My dad fixed the well pump and shut off the creek when I was a kid, but for one glorious summer a friend and I had a private series of potable waterfalls to play in.


This is from an enigma of a spot; giant chunks of pale white rock (With occasional orange weathering from the red soil in the area, or greyish margins.) This is 'in the back yard,' and near it are streaks of brick red and milky pink material. Also, something about this rock really attracts lichen. The rock is milk white, but the lichen (burned at the moment, it'll grow back) almost completely obscures it. Must be just the right surface roughness or harness or something. This is on contrast to some of the jasper streaks I've seen that are more visible for being almost devoid of lichen.



Miscellaneous finds from a previous evening. Found one of several source streaks on that hillside, but not the one that the blue rock came from. The blue is a mix of quartz and what looks like green jasper. The streak was just more milky pink and orange.



Tonight's hike:


I was supposed to be finding some neat leaf fossils but I got distracted and found pillow basalt instead. One's a perfect candy dish. It's going in my office and I'm going to see how many people will believe it's an 'indian bowl.'



I found one fossil and it wasn't a leaf.


and lots and lots of nonsense milky quartz that forms in the shale.


There was a very interesting breccated/healed material with a orbed discoloration pattern to it that came from right where the basalt met the shale, but I didn't manage to get any decent pictures of it. Will try tomorrow, with better light and washed rocks.

[lithicbeads]

I think it is carbonic acid that plants use to break down rocks.I have climbed mountains of all types of rock and the most lichen by far is found on granites  that themselves have a high acid cintent. They are very rough textured rocks and often the steep areas look black but in reality the rock is white but covered with a thick , inches thick in spots , mats of black and orange lichen. The orange lichen is usually found in chimneys that get relatively less light and it is very thick and shockingly orange. Visually it can be very disturbing to look at when you are high up , strung out and exhausted. The sea cliffs up here have a combination of moss and lichen that is often between 9 and 14 inches thick. If you get up this way again I can show you some. They are full of native spring flowering bulbs and at times I have seen cliff nesting mallard ducks while climbing as they seem to love to hunker down in the stuff.Clean air is mandatory for all these plants , very clean air for most.Thanks.

[Kaljaia]

Frank, I would love to see that! We saw the moss mats on the Waldron Island state park just a few weeks late and all the flowers had gone to seed, but I'd love to see that kind of niche environment in full bloom.

Here's the other place we find lots of moss and lichen:

[Kaljaia]

Found the fossils I was after, but no great samples, just small pieces because the light was going away fast.

Also, not a fossil.

[lithicbeads]

I saw an ad in the paper here on Whidbey for scorpion removal. We have no scorpions but man the dry side is nuts with them. Nice one . Ever been bit as a kid?

[Kaljaia]

I saw an ad in the paper here on Whidbey for scorpion removal. We have no scorpions but man the dry side is nuts with them. Nice one . Ever been bit as a kid?

Nope, never have. I've found lots of them, but not yet put my fingers where I couldn't see ;) Had an older friend catch one in a cereal bowl one time. He was kind of trying to get me stung so I'd know what it felt like but I wasn't having any of it. He said it was about par with a bad bumblebee (And I know what that feels like!). They're pretty shy. I used to get them in pit traps I'd set for beetles. Found another little one today when out with friends, and a very cold fence lizard.

Today's adventure was a failed attempt at fish fossils (memory failed me utterly and we walked in circles for an hour.) Then one of our party convinced the driver that Prineville was the 'shorter' way than back the old country road we'd come down. Saw the burned forest up in the Ochocos, had great burgers at some tiny place with rock slabs in their bar, and wandered home!

[lithicbeads]

A little subterfuge and a great day. The fence lizards have been out on the mainland in the north sound. Pretty early for them.I am glad that it is not only us old folks who have mixed up memory moments.I saw an article the other day that said there was a category of spatial intelligence  which seems quite obvious but the article went on to say that in some folks it is much more strong and innate than others.My old climbing partner and I did years of back country off trail travel and we often left our previous days camp at different times because we would invariably walk almost exactly the same path in very nasty steep overgrown terrain. I can still write exact descriptions of many very hard mountain approaches with excruciating detail but I have absolutely no idea what anyones name is or for that matter most of the places I worked construction. Put the crap out with the trash was a good motto I think but the peoples names thing is a real pain.

[Phishisgroovin]

i would have kept the scorpion, after it died you could have it cast, fired and replaced with silver lol!

[Kaljaia]

The rock from the latest adventure is still waiting to be sorted and tested, but here's a rather interesting monolith from the hike! There is a large and active bee hive in the vertical crack, so I didn't get any closer than this, but the formation does beg exploration sometime (on a much colder, wetter day...)