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Field CollectingCentral Texas Rockhounding

9th Feb 2007 16:26 UTCRachel

Hi there, I'm an amateur rockhound looking for some good places to hunt for interesting minerals in the central Texas area. I read on here about some garnets in Llano county, is there any non-private land I can go collecting on?

Also, someone posted on another thread about strontianite on Mt. Bonnell. How would I go about finding that? I've been to Mt. Bonnell severals times, so that'd be a good place to start hunting.

Can anyone help me?

Unfortunately, I can't meet up with anyone since my dad is over-protective.. So I'll need either directions or a good description of the area please :)

9th Feb 2007 16:29 UTCRachel

Oh yes, and what is a pegmatite? I've seen that word used on here several times.

9th Feb 2007 17:14 UTCAlan Plante

Hi Rachel

Perhaps if you did some research on mineral clubs down your way you could ask your father to take you to meetings and on field trips? Joining a club is the best way to find out where the good collecting spots are - since the club will probably hold trips to them, or members will be planning trips and inviting other members to go. And so long as your father accompanies you, there's no worry about meeting the "wrong sort of person." (BTW: He is absolutely right to be protective when it comes to meeting people you don't know, and there is no way you can really get to know people on-line - all you learn about them is what they want you to learn. Predators are often very good at comming across like good people - which they most certainly aren't... - I'll stop preachin' at ya now! :~} )

There is a web site called "Bob's Rock Shop", the URL is "rockhounds.com", where there is a link to a list of mineral clubs across the country in the American Federation of Mineralogical Societies. Scroll down the Table of Contents page at Bob's until you find it, then click in to the list. There are several clubs in your general area - maybe one of them close enough for you and your father to join. (A good friend of mine is a member of the big club in the Houston area, and if you are anywhere near there she would be a great person for you to meet - as would the rest of that gang. It is a highly repsected, very active, club.)

As to your question about pegmatite, it is basically a very coarse type of granite that forms very late in the development of granitic igneous rock bodies and ends up carrying all the highly volitle components that remain in flux until the very end of the crystallization process. These volitiles form a bunch of neat late-stage crystalline minerals that interest collectors - things such as Tourmaline Group species, topaz, beryl (including the aquamarine variety), Apatite Group species, spodumene, and others. Collectors flock to pegmatites to collect the way birds flock to bird feeders in the dead of winter to eat... :~}

Regards

Alan Plante

9th Feb 2007 18:14 UTCDr. Paul Bordovsky

Hello, Rachel.

The Austin Geological Society is sponsoring a field trip to south Texas

next weekend, Feb. 17th. Field collecting at several uranium mines will be

done, and visiting the sites of the old mills is planned. A chartered bus will

make the trip, and a field guide and CD will be provided. You can see photos of

a preliminary trip to the location in the collecting forum.

The Austin Gem and Mineral Society meets the fourth Thursday of each month. We try

to have one field trip a month. www.austingemandmineral.org has a map to our

clubhouse and some information. The website is undergoing a complete makeover,

but the basic information is still there.

If you like, I can email the latest AGMS newsletter.

Paul Bordovsky

Austin, TX

9th Feb 2007 18:38 UTCRachel

Thank you for all of the information, Alan! I'll take a look at that site and see if there's any clubs I can join :)

Thank you Paul, I will definately have to take a look at that site! That really sounds like an interesting trip.

Another question about pegmatite -- is it out in the open, or do you have to dig for it or break stone open?

10th Feb 2007 04:27 UTCAlan Plante

Hi Rachel

Pegmatite typically forms as dikes or sills in fractures or along planes in bedrock deep beneath the surface. Erosion and uplift bring them to the surface, where they become exposed, found, and mined for a variety of minerals (including gem stock and specimens of crystals.) Rockhounds basically visit the mines and pick through the tailing piles - or "mine dumps" - in search of specimens. Or, in some cases, they might work an unmined outcrop that has been exposed - or work the faces of old, abandoned, open pit mines.

Any type of rock that is "mineral rich" (from a colletor's perspective) might be visited by collectors in search of specimens, whether the rock has been mined or not. It's just that when mining has broken up the rock into more managable sized chunks it is easier for collectors to get specimens out of them: "Ledge work" is generally pretty tough to tackle.

"Loose deposits" (stuff that has been eroded out of the bedrock and deposited in one way or another) are also worked by collectors; such as screening gravels that contain certain minerals, or working scree piles at the bottoms of ledges. Panning for gold falls into this category of collecting.

KOR!

Alan

12th Feb 2007 22:40 UTCFranklin Roberts

Hi Rachel,

If you want to see some of the pegmatites in the Llano and Burnet County area, I'm usually out there every weekend collecting. I make the one hour drive to my collecting sites from home in southwest Austin.

To answer one of your questions, no, as far as I know all of the collecting sites in central Texas, including the pegmatites, are on private property and not open to casual collecting. About half of the effort I put into collecting from these sites is spent dealing with ranchers and landowners in order to secure permission to collect. In some cases, my access is on a lease basis.

If you would like to visit one or two of these pegmatites and collect some great specimens, have your father call my cell phone at (512) 848-8309. He can also reach me at KLRU-TV in Austin, where I'm the transmitter engineer. If you prefer, you can send me a private message on this site and tell me how to contact your dad. You mentioned visiting Mt. Bonnell several times, so I assume you live in Austin. If that's the case, you and your dad can meet me in Burnet, or we can caravan from Austin.

Frank

P.S. Your dad isn't being over-protective, he's just doing what dads are supposed to do. Look it up, it's in his job description.

13th Feb 2007 00:52 UTCJeremy Zolan

Hi Franklin! I hear you collected with David Aldridge at Llano! I talk to him a lot and he has taught me about Texas mineralogy and I have done the same with CT mineralogy. I was told that you guys found a HUGE mass of purple Fluorite at the mine (I heard around 10 feet with multiple pockets of large crystals) along with the radioactives which the area is known for. I also heard about your Monazite find from him! I think he's done a good job convincing me to go on a rockhounding trip out to Texas. I just don't know when that's going to be. Mount Bonnell has some nice stuff- Beautiful Stronianite! None of that here in Connecticut! Well, as far as I have seen.

13th Feb 2007 07:20 UTCFranklin Roberts

Hi Jeremy,

Yes, I invited David and his dad to collect from a couple of my more "showy" pegmatites, Badu Hill and Petrick. Although they're only four miles apart, their mineralogy couldn't be more different. Badu Hill is a predominantly late-stage hydrothermally altered pegmatite while Petrick is more magmatic. Petrick is only a little over a mile south of the now inundated site of Baringer Hill, the most fabulous of them all.

Because the Badu Hill Pegmatite was highly altered by mineral-laden superheated water after it formed, the variety of minerals found there is just amazing. You can pick up a 1kg chunk of REM conglomerate there and identify up to 25-30 different minerals in it. It's not unusual to find fluorite, pyrite, chalcopyrite, titanite, hematite, magnetite, bornite, covellite, gadolinite, fergusonite, anatase, uraninite and about a dozen others, including gold and silver, in the same radioactive specimen. I'll try to post some site photos in my gallery within the next few days.

There is one sad note to report however, the current owner of the Badu Hill Pegmatite has informed me that he intends to fill in the excavation at Badu Hill. So far, there has been no date announced, but he did say that if I wanted to get anything from the pit that I ought to do it as soon as I can. I've offered to buy the 10 acres that encompass the pegmatite, but he refused to sell at any price. I think he intends to offer the entire 120+ acre site for sale to developers and the presence of a quarry on the property would sour the deal.

I wish that I could impress upon him just how unique and special a place he owns, but so far, he's not having any of it. I suppose I shouldn't complain though. He has granted me exclusive unrestricted access to the property since he bought the place a couple of years ago and refused to accept payment for it. I just hate to see the place become somebody's strip shopping center. As you can see, if you plan on accepting my invitation to do a little Texas peggin', you'd better think about doing it sooner than later.

Frank

Frank

19th Feb 2007 22:18 UTCScott and Angela Crumley

Rachel, actually, you can find all kinds of neat minerals, crystals, and rocks just by taking the back roads and collecting right along the roadway. You should talk your Dad into taking you for a nice country drive out in the area of Llano, Mason, and around the Llano Uplift. Go purchase a book called "Roads of Texas" which has all the county roads that are paved and unpaved. We do most of our collecting using this map book, looking in mineral rich areas. Just recently we came upon a wonderful area rich in Serpentinite in Gillespie county, just south of Llano, near Willow City. The views were spectacular and th rock collecting was fun. We have found veins of Selenite that are yards wide and tens of feet long in Lampasas county along the county roads. We have found smokey quartz, topaz, calcite, pegmatite, rose quartz, some wonderful flourescing chalcedony type calcite. One nice drive is to Mason, then out towards Fredericksburg and take the James River road down to the James River and then around to the Llano river. At both rivers you will find a nice selection of different rocks and minerals. I hope you have a vehicle which will travel over dirt roads. Remember, if you are on a country road through a ranch, you may have to get out and open and close gates. Just be sure to keep to the county road and keep gates closed behind you. Most ranchers do not mind people traveling through with an occasional stop if you do not disturb the livestock or take hikes out onto their land. Collect along the road and you will find all kinds of stuff. Lampasas county is wonderful for fossils both in the Limestone roadcuts and in the riverbed of the Colorado River. Have fun! Oh and by the way, if you find that wonderful sky blue selenite at Mt. Bonnel, tell me where it is...I sure want some.

20th Feb 2007 04:17 UTCFranklin Roberts

Actually I think the sky-blue selenite at Mt. Bonnell is probably underneath somebody's swimming pool by now. When I first moved to Austin about 23 years ago, you could drive up to Mt. Bonnel and wander all over the place collecting to your heart's content. For about the last 15 years or so, Mt. Bonnell property has been bought by developers who have built million-dollar mansions all over the place. There is a city park at the pinnacle of Mt. Bonnell that overlooks the Colorado River and you could wander the trails there right up to the edge of the cliffs. Since the riverfront property beneath the Mt. Bonnell overlook has also been covered over with mansions, wandering off the trails at the park has been forbidden. It seems that the rich folks living underneath the overlook park began complaining about litter and falling rocks from above. The other source of selenite and strontianite in Austin, the Convict Hill Quarry, is now occupied by new homes and a strip shopping center.

Frank

27th Feb 2007 23:54 UTCBill Baker Barr

Hey, Kids!

Are you sure it was sky blue selenite? I've seen blue celestine (aka celestite) from Austin, pretty nice crystals with darker blue terminations.

Speaking of Central Texas, I'm thinking of moving south and/or west to find a full-time teaching job after 3 years of subbing in Michigan. College Station is a possibility, although I'm also considering New Mexico, North Carolina and northern Florida. I got all discouraged about Texas when I realized it's over 500 miles from College Station to the Big Bend agate diggings. If I want to drive that far up here, I can go from Ann Arbor to the Keweenaw Peninsula! Is there hope for mineral collecting in Aggie country?

Bill

28th Feb 2007 00:00 UTCDavid Von Bargen Manager

If you are interested in mineral collecting around College Station, Arkansas is fairly close (at least as far as drivers in Texas are concerned). There are a number of areas for petrified wood in east Texas.

15th Mar 2007 01:26 UTCChris Kaufman

David Von Bargen Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> If you are interested in mineral collecting around

> College Station, Arkansas is fairly close (at

> least as far as drivers in Texas are concerned).

> There are a number of areas for petrified wood in

> east Texas.

Hi David,

My wife and I have the opportunity to be in Austin this coming week and we love to rockhound (especially with the kids) every chance we get. I did some snooping on the net and found some threads that said Turkey Creek and Whites Creek in College Station are prime areas to find petrified wood. True? Are there any specific areas along the creeks that are best? What else could we find between Austin and College Station? Any tips/details would be very much appreciated. Thanks

Chris

18th Mar 2007 00:48 UTCBill Morgenstern Expert

WOW - Now this is helpful but I'd sure like to connect with a field collector while I'm visiting in Georgetown for the next 3 weeks. I've been out looking and finding interesting chert on Cty road 112 south of Llano. However I'm a very serious calcite, quartz, and fluorite crystal collector and would love to add several Central Texas specimens of each to my collection. Can anyone help!

Bill Morgenstern from Fort Frances, Ontario - CANADA

18th Mar 2007 23:27 UTCFranklin Roberts

....however I'm a very serious calcite, quartz, and fluorite crystal collector and would love to add several Central Texas specimens of each to my collection. Can anyone help!

Has a cat got climbing gear? Reply sent via PM.

Frank

19th Mar 2007 01:22 UTCHarold (Hal) Prior Expert

Mr. Bonnell is blue CELESTITE some with Strontianite balls growing on them. Unfortunately most has been taken by development for many years. In 1976 i was offered some quartz from Mt. Bonnell by a college student. I told I did not think it would be quartz, however, would like to see it. He proceeded to open the trunk of his car, lift out and approximately 30 pound bag of Blue Celestite which he dumped from about 4 feet onto a concrete parking lot. Cleavage fragments flew every direction. Through tear stained eyes I was available find 3 (2"-3") that went into my personal collections. In recent years ''ve only found small pockets on the park road leading to top of the hill with xls. that have faded to white. I now live 1200 miles away. Mt. Bonnell is basically history for the average collector.

Other Celestite locales are Convict Hill just West of Austin, and several locales on Bull Creek, and highway 1&183 interchange. Be advised that collecting any minerals in Austin are now covered by a City Ordinance that forbids it and is considering a felony "Stealing City Property". I know of at least one case of a person collecting on private property with permission that was arrested and charged with stealing city property. Highway 1&183 was a great locale for a few months until and individual that I had warned 3 days earlier was badly injured by a several ton boulder requiring city rescue team to get him out. Very dangerous blast zone, in which I as and experienced collector was extremly cautious/nervous with overhangs. People would bring small children out and let them crawl around on the ledges. As a geologist i was able to get the construction foreman to take me on the site later, however , most of the Celestite areas were quickly covered. It produced and abundance of blue to with xls. many with associated golden calcite. (someday I will be able to post some pictures). Most were coated with a powdery white residue (strontium?), and many were partially resorbed/etched and many had small clusters of cream colored strontianite on them. I have lots of this stuff just as locale pieces since it is now permanently covered by concrete/steel and grass, plus heavy high speed traffic.

More on Bull Creek and Convict Hill in next messages I need to sign off for now. Every new roadcut in NW and E travis county is a potential bonanza. ......Harold Hal) Prior

19th Mar 2007 01:39 UTCHarold (Hal) Prior Expert

Convict Hill is and old quarry that was converted into a shopping mall some years ago. It produced celestite, Calcite, and Strontianite. The celestite I collected was mostly small pale blue xl. clusters. The real prizes were the Strontianite pockets with strontianite pseudos of Calcite and/or celestite. I collected several cabinet size pseudo pieces many years ago plus have many small thumbnail sized that pieces that range from locality pieces to decent tn's. About 15 years ago I stopped at the high wall to the west of mall after a heavy rain and saw something blue up about 12 feet perched on a ledge in the mud. With my extended fly rod and my 6' plus height was able to nudge each off and catch it as it fell. They were two fabulous celestite cluster (3"-4") with ble and white, barrel shaped xls. much like the Lime City, Ohio celestites. I've never seen anything similar from the area. Obviously it was washed down from many feet above during the storm. My last visit there you could find small pockets of Strontianite in the wall of alley behind the mall. Warning - The dumpster behind the Chineses restaurant will definitely take your breath away on a hot summer day! Bull Creek locales next! .....Hal Prior

19th Mar 2007 01:48 UTCHarold (Hal) Prior Expert

More Austin I have acquired: Pyritized Oysters SW Austin, great sea urchins and other cretaceous fossils west side, small blue barite rosettes south Austin (The experts say no barite in Austin - they were wrong!), Bee Cave Road, fantastic snow white quartz floater clusters in soil, up to 4" (on 3M high security property is locale I was given by a security guard that collected them). Nice small twinned calcites in pockets, NW loop 360. I love the whole area for collecting potential! .....Hal Prior

19th Mar 2007 12:47 UTCHarold (Hal) Prior Expert

More Austin info - Bull Creek. I know of 4 locations on Bull Creek. First is just inside the loop 360 in NW Austin. Pockets in the stream bed produce small clusters of celestite in elongated gray to white xl. clusters. Next just outside the loop on south side of road Nice pointed xls. and flat terminated xl. ranging from gray to clear with dark blue terminations. Further west on North side of the road are similar occurrences about 8-10 feet up in really hard material and down in the stream level a soft sandstone layer. This soft layer can be worked with a screwdriver easily until you find a pocket which can produce some superb gemmy with dark blue terminations xls. The best I seen was a 3" waterclear, double terminated xl. with deep dark blue terminations that was found as floater with no attach points. Was found by a young girl wading in the creek. I offered $100 for it and was refused, unfortunately that was all the money I had with me. It was clearly museum piece! Further to the west at a small city park you can find in a small clay seam you can find small (1-2 cm.) light blue DT celestite xls. Caution - All of these sites are in the now forbid collecting zone. Further to the West isolate pockets of celestite can be found which are porbably outside the city of Austin, but you need to check owner status. ......Hal Prior

19th Mar 2007 15:59 UTCFranklin Roberts

My God, just who in the hell do these tin-pot tyrants think they're fooling around with? We're Texans! The last imperial dictator who came up here and tried to revoke the Constitution had his butt handed to him in a paper bag at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836.

It really puts a burr under my blanket when I think about the audacity of the Austin City Council in enacting a comprehensive ban on the collection of minerals within the city limits. Is this a joke? mineral collecting, even on your own land or on another's with permission, is considered theft of city property? WTF? I'm sorry to rant about this, but if everything on or below my land already belongs to the city, just what the hell am I paying property taxes on it for?

There is already ample precident including, I believe, a Supreme Court decision, that states that any act by a government entity that prevents a private landowner from enjoying the full use of his property, either through restrictive covenant or outright seizure, without fair compensation, shall be deemed unconstitunal. In other words, Mr. Mayor, if you aren't going to allow me to dig up that blue-capped celestine that keeps dinging my lawnmower, come see me, and bring your checkbook. This silly ordinance is open to attack from so many angles that it makes the Alamo look like Fort Knox.

The Travis County Commission has recently jumped on the land-grab bandwagon by passing a resolution to ban the use of metal detectors on all public property within the county. Outraged detector enthusiasts organized to put up such a stink that the Commission agreed to rubber stamp a motion to repeal the ban...That is, until the Texas Antiquities Commission jumped into the fray and obtained an emergency court injunction to leave the ban in force. Just to make sure that nobody on the County Commission entertained any notions of siding with their constituency, the TAC followed up on the injunction with a healthy dose of lawyerage, and the threat of mass sueage. The state Attorney General's office threatened to sue the beejezus out of Travis County should they go against the TAC by rescinding the ordinance.

So much for our "representative democracy". The people spoke, in a loud clear voice, and five faceless apointees that nobody elected, in an obscure office deep in the bowels of the state bureaucracy, decided that the people could go screw themselves. Well, at least the County Commision had enough sense to limit the scope of the ordinance to public property. They don't call this the People's Republic of Austin for nothing.

I can see the bumper stickers now, "I'll give up my rock hammer when they pry my cold dead fingers from the handle" or "As for me, give me micro acicular sprays of selenite on marcasite nodules, or give me death". I think I'm going to go dig up some chert in my backyard for a little flint knapping and dare the APD SWAT team to do something about it.

Frank

SIR! PUT DOWN THE CHISEL AND STEP AWAY FROM THE HOLE...DO IT NOW!

19th Mar 2007 17:13 UTCHarold (Hal) Prior Expert

Amen Frank! I spent many pleasant hours collecting in the hot Texas sun before the ordinance change. Has only modified my collecting habits - I now carry a camera and stash my finds to be picked up when I'm sure the gendarmes are not watching. No law against doing geologic research and taking pictures. However, as a geologist I've been stopped by Austin police and threatened with charge of carrying a concealed weapon (rock hammer under front seat of my vehicle). I asked if a carpenter could carry a hammer and he said yes its one of his tools - duh!! He said if I would put it where I couldn't reach it easily I would not get a ticket! Of course like many other sites much of Austin issues were driven by a few idiots that were injured on city property or did destructive damage to property in their quest to blast away a hillside in search of a few crystals. I failed to mention that the one case I'm aware of was dropped because it was on private property with the owners permission (I expect the city was concerned it would lose and set a precedence for private property).

I'm sure you have heard of the case in Lincoln national forest, New Mexico a few years ago where a group backbacked with tools back 4-5 hours into the mountains to collect smokies. After collecting for a period of time were suddenly surrounded by federal agents with automatic weapons (forget the nearby meth labs, stills, drug runners, and illegals - get those Smoky Quartz thieves for stealing federal property). The government took all the smokies (which they said would be taken back to the locale and dumped) and I believe later dropped or reduced the charges.

I lived many years with in sight of San Jacinto monument where Santa Anna met his demise at the hands of the "Yellow Rose of Texas" and a few loyal Texans. .....Hal P

19th Mar 2007 17:59 UTCDavid Von Bargen Manager

Santa Anna had a few more good years and stints as president of Mexico over the following 40 years (he would do real well on Survivor).

http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/santaanna.htm

19th Mar 2007 20:16 UTCAlan Plante

I think the Lincoln NF incident was a case of the USFS claiming the collectors were "prospecting without a permit." I don't recall the details, so I don't know if there was any validity to the claim or not. The problem is that the USFS doesn't seem to be able to distinguish between "prospecting" and "hobby mineral collecting." Their own regs don't clearly define the two activities.

Alan

22nd Mar 2007 19:53 UTCBill Morgenstern Expert

Whoa! I had no idea my recent post about collecting in the Austin, central Texas area would spark such an interesting exchange on the current situation, which I find very disturbing regarding the rights of individuals to recreationally collect a few rocks when others individuals can and do tear up the terrain with a variety of motorized toys. Austin seems like a great place with some liberal minded ideas I can appreciate but those surrounding collecting a few rocks seem a bit absurd. Anyway... I like your approach Hal and as a photographer Using your technique feel quite appropriate. I'm still in the area for another two weeks and do hope to find a few things to add to my collection up north in Canada. Hal, I'd love to talk to you and maybe see some of your collected specimens. Any chance of this happening??

Bill

16th Jun 2007 20:10 UTCheather smith

Hey all, I know not much has been posted on this thread as of recent. I am in Austin for a few weeks with my 2 young sons and we are very hyped up to go hounding. I come from a long line of rock hounds and am continuing the tradition with my children. I have done some on line research concerning the general area and rock/fossil hounding and stumbled on this thread. I grew up in El Paso and spent many hot summer days with Dad hammering away in Hatch and Oro Grande, NM. I love rocks, but the recent changes to laws are starting to scare me. Do you think they would actually fine a 29 year old mom with her 8 and 2 year old son for picking up some rocks? Other wise I am ready to blaze the trail and find some good pieces to document our trip. Any other good info or directions or even pointers and advice would be greatly appreciated at the moment. You can email me personally or post here I guess. Thanks a million, Heather Smith.

16th Jun 2007 23:15 UTCHarold (Hal) Prior Expert

Once you leave the city limits of Austin you have no problem as long as you respect the rights of private property. To the west and north toward Llano nearly every road cut has abundant fossils. Some of the small dirt roads on west side of lakes (Travis) have so many fossils along the roads it difficult to walk on them (Sea urchins, oysters, etc.). Every new roadcut west of Austin has the potential for mineral occurences. Just be careful and use common sense around traffic and ledges. Wish I was still close enough to roam around the Texas hills. .....Hal P

17th Jun 2007 00:30 UTCDavid Aldridge

Heather, I'm currently in Austin myself visiting my cousins, but I go back to Dallas tomorrow. I recommend Mt. Bonnell. Go early in the morning. The rocks heading up to the entrance of the trail (from the parking lot) have LOTS of strontianite. I collected about 10 pounds of it the last time I went.\

Regards,

David

18th Jun 2007 01:14 UTCFranklin Roberts

Heather,

Call me at (512) 848-8309. I can escort you onto several private collecting areas where you and your sons can have a great time collecting minerals.

David, if you had told me you were going to be in town, I could have taken you to Badu Hill with me yesterday.

Frank

3rd Jan 2008 03:15 UTCsilvetta ann

Franklin, adopt me--

and my granddaughter.

Please.

I'm stump'd......

I found one eighth to one half inch thick running layers of super clear glass-like sheets in a bluff around Aspermont, TX. They aren't totally flat like a pane of glass, they seemed to conform to the pressure of the rock pressing them above and below. It was so weird to see, I was stunned and mystifried, and that's note worthy. I dug out several pieces but most were in such HUGE heavy sheets I couldn't get them out. The land belongs to my daughter-in-law's family. They said the "stuff" is broken up in most creek beds and they don't think of it as anything special (anymore than sand). PLEASE tell me what you think it is. Could it the bastard offspring of an incandescent merging of diamonds and selenite? A glass company's 3 million year old dumpsite? WhaTha?

And...

is there any place that would be interesting, as far as minerals (or hidden diamonds) in the Abilene area we could go seek and find? We spend way too much time where the James crosses the Llano around Mason. I have a granddaughter that is growing into my rockhound shoes and I'm running out of places to take her.

Iâ€™m taking her to the Great Salt Plains Lake out side of Jet, Oklahoma this year, I wish I could find something like that close to Abilene. Lake Abilene just doesn't cut it when it comes to possible jewelry making stones, albeit there is some freaky-deekie rocks around that lake.

We are members of the rock club that's here in Abilene and weâ€™re both learning how to slice and dice stones. She is only nine years old and this is the very first passion in her life, and I want to find more places that will keep her off the streets and digging in the dirt for several years. Thanks so much for taking anytime to respond. And, if it's too much to type to explain, call me 325.660.0659

Silvetta Ann,

Oklahoma born,

Texas raised....perfect.

4th Jan 2008 19:50 UTCBill Baker Barr

Hi, Rachel,

It's not exactly close to Abilene (except maybe by Texas definition of "close"?), but you should definitely take your young rockhound down to the Big Bend area. You can collect high quality agates, great for polishing, at the Woodward Ranch south of Alpine and the Stilwell Ranch south of Marathon. The Davis Mountains between Alpine and I-10 are beautiful volcanic terrain. Ask the nice lady at the Blue Agate Rock Shop in Fort Davis about local collecting, including down around Terlingua (and buy some beautiful Balmorhea agate). The Moonlight Gemstones shop in Marfa also has great local agates and other stuff, and may be able to advise on local collecting. That is just gorgeous country around there!

Happy hunting!

Bill Barr

27th Jan 2008 22:39 UTCTed Tower

What is the best way too get started in the rockhounding? I'm retired nd don't know much about the difference in the rocks. Also ,would like to know some good places to goto begin my hunting.

I live in Dripping Spring,and have alot of marine fossils on my small piece of property.Thanks for any help you can give.

Ted Tower

30th Jan 2008 05:32 UTCBill Baker Barr

The best advice I or anyone else can give you is to join a club of rock & mineral enthusiasts, where you will find lots of helpful, generous people interested in different aspects of the geology-related hobbies, pursuits and obsessions.

According to the Bob's Rock Shop website, there's a club in Waco: WACO GEM & MINERAL CLUB,â€¨ PO Box 8811 (76714-8811),â€¨ Meetings: 1st Monday, 7:30 pm, Richfield Christian Church â€¨Fellowship Hall, 4201 Cobb Dr.

There are also clubs fairly near to you (by Texas standards): in Austin, visit http://www.austingemandmineral.org/ and in Arlington, visit http://agemclub.org/

Texas is full of sedimentary rocks with fossils. For minerals, you're fortunate to live near the Llano Uplift, a great region for collectors, especially those interested in pegmatite occurrences - check out this thread for details and contacts. If you become interested in lapidary work, southern Texas has lots of petrified wood, and the Big Bend area is one of the premier agate-producing regions in the country.

Good luck, and welcome to our world, where being old enough to retire doesn't mean you have to stop acting like a kid!

Bill Barr

7th Feb 2008 20:56 UTCTed Tower

Bill,

Thank you for the information. Got permission to go on a place just north of Lexington,Tx. Found some nice size pieces of petrified wood. Now I'll be looking for a place out near Big Bend.

Ted Tower

20th Feb 2008 03:29 UTCBill Morgenstern Expert

Back in Georgetown for 2 months. Franklin or others wanting a rockhounding partner let me know, I'm ready to go. Celestine, calcite and good marine fossils of interest.

Bill

20th Feb 2008 21:40 UTCsparth sparth

just came back from austin last weekend, i found very nice fossils close from a friend's house in the north of allen park, close from the MO PAC. probably a spot where nobody ever goes as it's mainly private.

i'm a 36 years old father of two kiddos, 8 and 4. french, living in Dallas. it's pretty difficult finding spots to go rockhounding with my older one. i'm still searching. mineral clubs are great but their goal is not really to give you GPS coordinates. :D

David Aldridge, your site is great: and it's exciting to see what you've found around the metroplex.

anyway if any of you guys know where to legally prospect, i'll be delighted to gather any infos:D

nicolas

21st Feb 2008 00:23 UTCFranklin Roberts

Hi Bill, Sparth

I will be otherwise occupied for the next couple of weeks, but will probably be open to taking collectors out to the uplift after then. I've had some problems with a couple of collectors returning to trespass after being allowed to collect at two of my sites recently. In at least one instance, this has put my access in jeopardy with the land owner. I will be installing new signs and fencing as well as other security measures because of this. Once these expensive improvements are in place, I will again be open to sharing my collecting sites with my fellow rockhounds on a probational basis. Should the problem continue, I'll be forced to reconsider my position on sharing my sites with other collectors. You know the saying, "No good deed goes unpunished".

Frank

21st Feb 2008 16:24 UTCsparth sparth

frank, i really understand.

i think i'd freak out to the simple fact of being one someone else's property without any consent.

my only goal is to be able to bring my kiddo see what the whole thing is all about. he is amazingly passionate about rockhounding, i've never seen him being so fascinated about anything. and as a result, i'm slowly becoming as much addicted as he is. :D

we have the woodward ranch in mind, and we want to go as soon as we can, but unlike llano, it's a long drive from the metroplex. on the other hand there seems to be no public land at all in llano.

such a dilema!

nicolas - sparth

21st Sep 2009 03:03 UTCPaul Broyles

Hi there. This topic is old, but I wandered around Convict Hill, Mt Bonnell, and Mt Barker recently with my daughter. Here is what I observed:

1) Convict Hill - significant non-crystallized white Strontianite in vugs with mud. One nice flower of crystals on ground at base. Verified with microscope. Several marine fossils, fwiiw.

2) Mt Bonnell - a little clear calcite in rock, a few nice grey heavy hunks of celestite loose on side of hill, one small nodule inside limestone near path, a couple of pieces of flint/chert, and a fair amount of crystalized strontianite in vugs which I left in place. Verified a small piece that was on ground below vug under microscope.

3) Mt Barker - uh, there is only a few feet of mountain left visible. Wouldn't waste my time. I did look one spot and see a vug filled with small greenish transparent crystals of some sort (unidentified). I assume the green is from the mineral, but I don't know.

On the way up from Houston I found some nice palm wood in a creek under a highway and some nice other opalized and silicified wood! Not sayin' where! Palm Wood is too hard for me to find, and this is about the only thing within reasonble driving distance from me here.

Since Frank graciously took my daughter and myself out several years ago, I've developed quite a passion for rockhounding. Hi Frank! I prefer to avoid central Texas because it is so developed (almost all private property) and so far from here. I've taken multiple trips to California, Colorado, and Arizona this year. In fact, tomorrow, I'll be working the Stifle Claims near Sacremento, CA tommow looking for green and purple Vesuvianite xls.

Hint: I've found four tools indespensible in this order: GPS, Stereo Microscope, UV lamp, and (to a lesser extent) geiger counter.

I ignore California serpentine, but I'd love to find some Texas serpentine and talc... Colorado and Arizona are great with all that BLM land and abandoned mines!

One other ?: Lake Buchanan is low. Is it low enough to find Baringer Hill or anything good out there. I found some graphic granite and some weird red orbs on quartz where the water is supposed to be, but nothing exciting...

Thanks,

Paul

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