Does rockhouding count as /out/? I don't think I've

I went out camping along the River Tay recently and I found a lot of granite chunks with what I think is malachite running through them. Now I've got one of the chunks sitting next to a polished bit of malachite and a piece of copper on my shelf. There's a beach next to Culzean castle I used to spend a lot of time combing when I was younger, you'd find some nice stones there quite often. Mostly agate though.

I'm hoping to take a trip to the Cairngorms soon to look for some Cairngorm smoky quartz.

Ugh, this is glorious stuff. I personally would like to get into rockhouding. I don't quite have the knowledge of tools yet to contribute too much to the thread.

I live pretty close to Murfeesboro, Arkansas. I went digging at the Crater of Diamonds State Park when I was really young. We did a terrible job with our rented tools and I was with my old grandma so we didn't find much other than your basic small things, jasper, quarts, ect. We did end up going through the dirt next to a couple that found at least three extremely tiny diamonds along with a bunch of other gorgeous pieces of rock. They probably owned a shop and went hunting quite often.

>>852713
I recommend looking for a local gem and mineral society. They should be able to help you out. It helps to have someone that knows what they're talking about. If you are a college student or live near a college, they likely have a geology club you could talk to. I'm a chemistry guy and he's an engineer student, so we're amateur geologist at best. It helps to have someone who is more knowledgeable. If nothing else, you should be able to find guide books specific to your area that give you a general idea what may be where. Unfortunately, they're often out of date, so you have to be careful, and you should research the area you intend to go to first, so you don't wind up pulling up to a strip mall when you were hoping to find a deposit of amethyst like I did.

My rockhounding friend's grandmother has a PhD. in geology, and it's helpful, especially with identification, if we find something weird.

You don't need much to get started, gloves, a shovel, and an idea where to go is all. It's nice to have a way to break rock, but not necessary. We use a combination of a chisel and a pickaxe when necessary. Note: You NEED to be wearing safety glasses if you are breaking rocks, they can fragment quite violently. If you don't have eye pro, you shouldn't be breaking.

The other big thing I recommend is finding out what is local to the area, and researching pictures of that particular item unpolished and uncut. It sucks to pass over something, then realize later you should have grabbed it.

It's a scientifically interesting hobby that's cheap. Other than the cost of gas, you can find interesting, sometimes valuable, samples for free. The guy I mentioned previously uses some of what we find in jewelry making.

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>>852713

Arkansas has some neat shit.

If you can get over towards hot springs, you should look into Magnet Cove. You can find Barite, brookite, smokey quartz easily as far as minerals go, and carbonatite real easy, which is a rare magmatic rock.

AR-51 is the best road to take through it for easy rockhounding. The carbonatite outcrop is right west of the cove creek bridge, on the north side of the road. If you go over further east from there, as you turn onto baroid road, just off AR-51, to the left side of the road, there is a small outcrop that has lots of brookite (small black bypyramidal crystals) and some smoky quartz. If you then continue up baroid road, then veer to the right onto Darby lane, eventually you will pass a big, pretty lake on the left. Just past the lake, there is (or atleast the last time I was out there), a Halliburton facility. Just across from the sign there is sort of a little dirt field you can pull into. In that field you can find little spherical barite nodules.

If you go up Gourdneck Valley, down to where it crosses cove creek and turns to run parallell to it, there's a spot in there where you can go dig in the creek for some pretty badass pyrite.

>>853338
I still haven't been able to find a good sample of pyrite, it's on my list of things, though.

Currently in my last year as an undergrad in geology in AZ. Went to Camp Verde looking for some evaporites and got some decent sized gypsum. Looking for more sites to find minerals and fossils.

Wish me luck bump. If I don't have an excessive amount of Calc 2 homework this weekend, I'm going to head out this weekend to hunt some more agate and some petrified algae.

I also came across a map indicating I may have turquoise relatively close to where I live, so that's pretty cool.

>>852712

Green in granite is more likely epidote than malachite. Its a common alteration product of the feldspars.