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Rock Art => Carvings and Sculptures => Topic started by: auscarver on November 16, 2018, 03:38:14 AM

Title: Rhodonite odd ball
Post by: auscarver on November 16, 2018, 03:38:14 AM
I live in a region in Australia that has more than 40 rhodonite deposits, have helped mine the gem and seen most of the color mixes, this little carving is a piece I collected with friends a few weeks back, way more than rhodonite in this piece.
Title: Re: Rhodonite odd ball
Post by: peruano on November 16, 2018, 03:53:03 AM
Wow!
Title: Re: Rhodonite odd ball
Post by: vitzitziltecpatl on November 16, 2018, 05:04:28 AM
Wow indeed! Wish I could think of a better word, but that's all I could think when I saw that beauty.

The carving accentuates an already incredible piece. Thanks for letting us see it.
Title: Re: Rhodonite odd ball
Post by: hummingbirdstones on November 16, 2018, 05:22:44 AM
That is absolutely gorgeous!  Love the colors and your carving is, of course, perfection!   :notworthy:
Title: Re: Rhodonite odd ball
Post by: rocks2dust on November 16, 2018, 08:51:07 AM
Beautiful: both stone and what you did with it!
Title: Re: Rhodonite odd ball
Post by: lithicbeads on November 16, 2018, 09:51:18 AM
Nice pice. Was it uniform in hardness? Here in Washington our rhodonite is often infused with silica making for very easy cutting.Are there copper ores adjacent to where that stone was sourced.Very unusual combination.
Title: Re: Rhodonite odd ball
Post by: auscarver on November 16, 2018, 11:18:59 AM
Thanks, its the hardest rhodonite I have cut, rhodonite is said to be no harder than 6.5 but this is slightly under 7, the deposit contains jaspers of many colours as you can see, the green is what caught my eye, it,s a stone called tephroite.It polished great slight variation in hardness but had no trouble with undercut, there are copper deposits close by but there is no copper in contact with the deposit, it may also contain spassatine but I don,t think any has been found in my area, this is on the peel fault not far from the nephrite jade deposits so I would not be surprised if it does. 
Title: Re: Rhodonite odd ball
Post by: lithicbeads on November 16, 2018, 12:13:09 PM
It has become difficult here to find rhodonite  without spessartine except in one in situ situation. A scientific paper on the rhodonites , an aside actually in a more comprehensive paper, tested many rhodonite deposits here and it turns out that rhodochrosite is found to a small xtent in almost all deposits in Washington. The paper also directed me to a road cut at low elevation that has rhodonite.Most rhodonite here is in mid elevation deposits or streams and snow is a big problem and then forest fire hazard becomes just as big a problem.
Title: Re: Rhodonite odd ball
Post by: ileney on November 16, 2018, 04:46:22 PM
Really unusual and attractive.
Title: Re: Rhodonite odd ball
Post by: Kaljaia on November 16, 2018, 07:00:38 PM
Very fun little stone! Lovely carving.
Title: Re: Rhodonite odd ball
Post by: VegasJames on November 17, 2018, 03:32:51 AM
Great design. :headbang: