Generalbeach and river collecting
reading posts about beach rocks i learned that some people collect mineral
specimens by cracking open beach rocks
i also learned that identification can be impossible since the source could be 1000s of km away
post pics of beach rocks, minerals found at the beach or collecting techniques if you like.
these were found at Bond Head, south of Newcastle Ontario Canada
not asking for an id... but they do seem like minerals and not fossils to me
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Jeff, I like this and the garden rock thread(tu) I'll try and dig-up something in the shed/garden to contribute. If the nature thread is a hit, then people should have fun with this as well. The really neat beach/river rocks often look best when wet. If you have more than one example of each try a clear varnish on them and they might just prove worthy of some type of display?
Matt:)-D Hi Jeff. I think identification IS possible, but knowing the geologic setting from which the rock originated is often not. For example, your top photo has black crystals that are probably either an amphibole "hornblende" or a pyroxene such as augite. I'd go with amphibole because of their elongated habit. This is in an igneous rock such as a gabbros or diorite. The lower photo is probably a volcanic porphyry with light feldspar phenocrysts, perhaps plagioclase crystals. If I had the samples here physically to look at I'd be more certain. But I agree that collecting rocks that have been transported a long way has its many rewards. We find many interesting things in the glacial drift here in Wisconsin, not the least of which is Lake Superior agates. The fun is that you never know what may turn up and a geologist can use this information to extract information on ice flow direction, and even prospecting, such as tracing indicator minerals up-glacier to diamondiferous bedrock. Here's a photo of one of favorite glacial drift finds - a large copper boulder turning up in central Wisconsin, but almost certainly starting out from Upper Michigan.
I lived my first 45 years or so in eastern Iowa, which is blessed with glacial till peppered with everything but the kitchen sink originating anywhere from a few yards to hundreds of miles away. My first-ever rock collecting field trip circa 1970 was with the neighbor kid across the street to his dad's workplace at a sand & gravel operation along the Mississippi River. The piles of washed river rock there and at similar establishments up and down the river present a smorgasbord of rock and mineral types that I really miss now that I'm in Maine. Collecting in pegmatite mines is nice, but the river rock here lacks the great variety of color, texture, and lithology that I grew up with. I'll add a photo tomorrow when I can work in daylight.
I love these ones that I collected this past June out in the Canadian Rockies.
Matt
I won't add much as everything I'd want to say has already been stated. :-D
I will say that Bill is spot on when it comes to using glacial drift and their associated rocks/minerals to determine the nature of the glacier itself as well as using indicator minerals to find precious gem and metal deposits. As you can see from Bill's photo, it's hard to say what you might find...... 
I like to walk along some beaches here on the shores of Erie in northeast Ohio. It's relaxing just to walk along the lake. I have seen bald eagles diving for fish. Sometimes I bring a rod along and try for steelhead in the spring and fall. If the fish aren't around I always have some stones to look at. It takes my mind of all the other stuff. Some beaches have plenty of rocks and some don't. Some have bigger cobbles and others are more rounded to pebbles. I've found one pebble that shows decent flash of labradorite. I have found rocks of all sizes with garnet crystals. I find some of the pegmatite and metamorphic textures very interesting in the rocks. Once in a while I'll pick up a rounded coral. I mostly pick up igneous and metamorphics for their texture or colour. I'm thinking of making a mosaic and fashion into some coffee tables or something for my patio. Using river sands and gravels to find the origin of gems, gold, or diamonds has been documented in a great book, "Barren Lands" by Kevin Krajick. It is the story of the search for diamonds in Canada, and a real page-turner. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. An unpolished and polished Petosky Stone from the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. These used to be very common on the beaches along this part of the lake. These are water tumbled fragments of a colony coral.
Also silicified fossiliferous limestone from beaches on a southern Indiana lake. CHEERS.....BOB
A rain flower pebble is my favourite cobble.
What an interesting thread! Gotta agree with John....why do you always have to go to some exotic mine to find something interesting? 
Glacial erratic rocks are cool.So many colors and patterns.These are from northwest Ohio,USA farm fields.Titanite crystals members of this site made id of,Thanks. Sorry there is the titanite
garnet
Green granite?
More polished erratic rocks.
Bill, interesting..i would not have guessed the ID
i did learn about glacial drift recently
a property i bought is mostly surrounded by crown land and i found out some neighbouring
parcels are leased to a mining company.. which through more searching
i was able to see their glacial till analysis
and some maps showing the glacier direction during different time frames
interesting stuff
Matt C, that redish/purplish and green one looks like one i found i will post a pic later
Matt N, when i searched for a beach hunting thread.. i ended up here:
http://www.mindat.org/loc-132857.html
i have definitely never found anything that looked like that!
i have family in ashtabula but i have never been down there
i have been finding rocks with garnets in them as well (i think)
here is one i found today
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D.Peck, book sounds interesting
Bob, i have some fossil coral which might polish up nice like that!
George, beautiful spot.. neat seeing it at low and high water
Steve, i have one that looks visually similar...
yet looks like a different combination of minerals
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i like to look where the waves wash up or wade in the water a bit and just look for rocks that are visually appealing
one day canoeing at rouge beach in toronto canada
the water was very clear and i stopped at a really colourful rock
i told a kid playing in the water nearby he should pick it up
it was an amazing rock... really colourful
i hope he still has it
that kinda kicked it off for me
parked the canoe and the kid with the awesome rock
his sister, my nephew and i looked for more cool rocks
and ever since then i have been chasing that first rock!
anyway i did find another awesome one today
nothing like the one i pointed out to that kid... but awesome none the less
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Some of the beaches in Cornwall are great for collecting pebbles that contain Cassiterite - sometimes in the wood Tin form.
Some examples:
Carbis Bay beach - Wood Tin.
Carbis Bay Beach - rich Cassiterite pebble (not claiming to be Wood Tin ;-)).
Wheal Margery Cove - rich tin pebble (not claiming to be Wood Tin ;-)). Trevaunance Beach at St Agnes is also a good source:
Cassiterite, massive material and surviving crystals in vugs (not claiming to be Wood Tin ;-)).
White 'Dough Tin' variety of Cassiterite (not claiming to be Wood Tin ;-)).
Wood Tin - variety Toads Eye Tin - check out the child images for the detail.
Virtually solid pebble of Cassiterite from the Wherry Mine, Wherrytown Beach (not claiming to be Wood Tin ;-)).
Tin bearing pebble from Porthtowan Beach (not claiming to be Wood Tin ;-)).
A large cobble from Trevaunance Beach with Pyrite, Chalcopyrite, Cassiterite, Sphalerite and Galena (not claiming to be Wood Tin ;-)).Dale, those are nice cassiterite pebbles, but not "wood tin", which is microfibrous and has banding like agate, an in for example the following specimen: http://www.mindat.org/photo-10374.html Alfredo, thank you for your comments regarding wood tin, however, you are a little misguided on this subject.
Not all wood tins show the classical multicoloured colloform banding as seen in the Lee Moor specimen. This is one reason it has often been overlooked from a number of locations, but for those of us who are well practiced in looking at this material and have extensive on the ground experience in collecting in both Cornwall and Devon, we have identified Wood Tin from a large number of locations
The Carbis Bay Wood Tins can be very amorphous in appearance in the hand specimen but show microfibre structure when viewed at higher magnification.
If you care to go back and look at my pictures attached above, only two of them are labelled as showing Wood Tin, one of which is such a Carbis Bay specimen, the other being from Trevaunance Cove and with the latter if you examine the child images, as I commented in the posting you will see evidence of classical banding. Personally, I wouldn't call it "wood tin" unless it looked like wood in cross-section, to do justice to the etymology of the name. Nevertheless, the IMA only makes definitions for species, not varieties, so, there being no official body defining varietal names of minerals, I suppose the definitions are fuzzily stretchable and we won't necessarily all agree on them.
Anyway, as a cassiterite collector myself, I enjoy seeing your photos and explanations, we'll just sometimes have to agree to disagree on what to call them. Well that is your choice.
Whether there is clear banding or not it shows the fibrous texture so is a form of Wood Tin.
Picture posts above edited to clarify which are Wood Tins and which aren't. Whilst the focus of the thread does seem to be shifting, I wish to make the following observations. J H Collins ( Mineralogy of Cornwall and Devon ) 1871 list some brief descriptions of wood tin specimens. More recently, a paper by Hosking, Stanley and Camm Trans. R.G.S.C. Vol XXI pp 153, 212. entitled The Occurrence, Nature and Genesis of Wood Tin in South West England, goes into the subject in some detail. It is clear that the term 'Wood Tin' has not historically merely been applied to the classic 'wood tin' specimens, but also to a number of different and unusual styles of emplacement. The difficulty comes from a world which no longer allows the breadth of interpretation of a word or phrase which was commonplace 100 plus years ago. I will continue to use my own interpretation of the term 'wood tin' as it suits me. I have no argument with Alfredo's narrower interpretation but then why do we say 'wood tin' anyway? We ought if pedantic enough to be referring possibly to colloform Cassiterite anyway. :-) For those who love their 'wood tins' or 'colloform cassiterites' see the 80 x 60 mm attachment. Best wishes to all.
Great thread, I hope we keep it going.
The road from Cody, Wyoming to Yellowstone Park follows the Shoshoni River. About 13 miles past the west end of the Buffalo Bill Reservoir, where Clocktower Creek enters the Shoshoni River, is a basalt formation called “The Holy City”. The tributaries of the Shoshoni River erode vast areas of basalt distributing cobbles of amygdaloidal basalt along the river bank. This is a good source of micro zeolites. Well worth a look on your way to Yellowstone.
With reference to Dale Foster's Cassiterite pebbles some which present areas of wood tin, I too have collected from the same locations and collected similar specimens. It often presents itself in an amorphous fibrous state giving the appearance of wood rather than the classic layered variety you see in museums or in books. These have all been labelled Cassiterite variety Wood Tin, under magnification the Cassiterite really does have the fibrous appearance of wood. There really is no other description that would depict it better, I too have been self collecting Cassiterite in my home county of Cornwall and neighbouring Devonshire for over 40 years having been guided in my early days by many old timers who were actively involved in the Cornish tin industry who were calling this form of Cassiterite Wood Tin even in my youth. Hi Jeff -neat rocks(tu) I like to go to the OLMC shop and make some free-form shapes/cabs with some of my extras and rougher ones that I find. With our winter approaching and collecting season inevitably ending, this is what keeps me going with rocks and minerals.
Matt Hy, here are some of my finds from river Drava.
Limestone- Drava river.Slovenia
Limestone- Drava river.Slovenia
Limestone- Drava river.Slovenia And some more.
Limestone- Drava river.Slovenia
Limestone- Drava river.Slovenia
Limestone- Drava river.Slovenia Not finished yet.
Jasper -river Drava.
Serpentinite-river Drava.
Limestone-river Drava. And some from Soča river.
Limestone-Soča river, Slovenia.
Limestone-Soča river, Slovenia.
Cinabarite rich limestone-Soča river, Slovenia. Hi Boris,
Beautiful and interesting rocks. And I really like what you have done with them!
? Soča river , Slovenia.
Dont know what this is but it looks good for me.
Good luck.
BorisNice thread but I can't find the photo I wanted to add here but my first thought was to tell a short story.
When we had our mineral store open some tourists came in during their long vacation around the western trip. They had been in Montana and had been told that a certain river area had Montana agates. They didn't know much about minerals but wanted to collect some of the Montana agate. They should have asked the person they talked to about how to find it but went on the hunt blind. They had found several large chunks they had in their trunk, nearly basketball size pieces. They had me come out and see their Montana agate find.
What they had was big stream worn boulders of plain quartz. I got a similar stream worn piece of the Montana agate I had nearby. It looked a bit similar but I had also brought out a cup of water to show how to find the right pieces. After I dipped my piece in the water, the inner patterns came out and one could see the beauty of the material. I poured the water on the one chunk of their find they had lying on the ground and nothing showed.
The wife smacked her husband while saying "the stream with water was right there, why didn't you find out about how to find the right pieces before we started". Oh well, since they were now in SE Arizona, it was a bit late. Something as simple as water to see the colors and patterns had not been known to them. Hope it didn't ruin their interest in picking up rocks.
Rolf
Found the piece I was looking for. This one I found on the beach in Oregon back in the early 1970's. Nice color of jade and I still have that piece. Unfortunately I never noted where I picked it up.Nice one, Rolf.
Beach collecting in the Keweenaw is always filled with interest. Over the years starting around 1950 I have spent many days hiking these beaches. Below is my son Ken on a typical Keweenaw beach. He is looking for agates but there is a lot more than agates to collect.
Here is a weathered chunk of conglomerate that I found on the beach. It shows some malachite and, of all things, azurite! In spite of all of the copper, azurite is extremely rare in the Keweenaw. (7.0 cm)
Here is a banded iron pebble from a Keweenaw beach. (5.0 cm)
It shows an interesting pattern when cut and photographed under the microscope. (FOV 2.2 mm)
Larry,,,, Awsome close-up photo :-D Larry,
The oolitic iron in the photos look a lot like the material from the deposits at Wabana, Newfoundland.
I know the Gogebic Range had some oolitic iron, not sure about the others... Enjoying the photos. I have a habit of collecting a variety of rock samples from streams in places I visit. I then have hours of fun exploring them in detail with watch repairers spectacles 25x. One recent sample has many white ' threads' which are visible in uv light. Does anyone know what this might be? At first I thought it was organic matter of some sort on the outside of the rocks, but when I crack then open /split them, this same thread is on the inside. Some more tin bearing pebbles that have been cut and polished:
Wood Tin from Trevaunance Cove.
Wood Tin from Trevaunance Cove showing an intriguing 'finger print' like structure.
Wood Tin from Carbis Bay beach showing fibrous bands surrounding mainly quartz grains and crystals. Dale
How big are those pritty tin bearing pebbles ? Hi Wayne,
If you click on the photographs and pull up the descriptions I have included dimensions of them.
Basically all three will sit in the palm of my hand comfortably so around 3 to 3.5 inches across.
Here are couple more:
Cassiterite and Pyrite from Trevaunance Cove. This one is just short of three inches across.
Cassiterite with Pyrite from Wheal Margery, St Ives - this one is a bit larger - about 5 inches across. Grey crystal on left is suspected corundum. Quartz didn't scratch it. Seems to be mica rimmed on close inspection. Picture taken from galaxy s7. Specimen from lake erie, ohio.
I didn't realize when my phone uploaded the picture, it rotated it counter-clockwise 90 degrees. The crystal is on the bottom. However if you open the photo to view larger, it goes back to original orientation and the crystal is on the left side of pebble.
The beach at Trevaunance Cove, St Agnes, source of many interesting tin bearing pebbles. This view is taken at high tide with only part of the collecting area visible.
Cassiterite in quartz vein pebble.
Wood Tin from Trevaunance Cove - yes it IS Wood Tin and when viewed with magnification clearly shows both microfibre structure and colour zoning.
Hello Dale,
Looks like a fun place to collect, especially on a hot day. Do you ever dive for specimens? Dale, Those are beautiful specimens! Keepers!!! (I am one of those obnoxious purists who has to know exactly from where every specimen originated. I am re-evaluating) Reiner Mielke Wrote:
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Hello Dale,
Looks like a fun place to collect, especially on a hot day. Do you ever dive for specimens?
Reiner,
No I don't dive for specimens, just a bit of paddling.
Low tide exposes plenty of collecting area at this and other beach locations.
Ironically a hot day is not ideal, better a low tide after a good storm has shifted the sand and shingle around and ideally a slightly damp day so the colour of the pebbles is vibrant allowing you to see the best material. A hot dry day is actually a more difficult day to find good material on the beaches whereas a dry day with good light is better on the mine dumps. D. Peck Wrote:
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Dale, Those are beautiful specimens! Keepers!!! (I am one of those obnoxious purists who has to know exactly from where every specimen originated. I am re-evaluating)
Don,
There is nothing wrong with wanting good locality information for specimens. I find it most annoying to see specimens just labelled as 'Cornwall' without other location information, the county isn't a small place and we have had several thousand mines working at various time in the past (not all at once), so such limited location information is about as much use a chocolate teapot.
Anyway, one more cut and polished pebble for now, I have put this one on another thread, but it fits nicely here as well:
Cassiterite in brecciated matrix, Trevaunance Cove.
Some of my finds from east of cleveland.
Greenish rock i figure come any where from sudbury to thunderbay. White quartz and stylolite (spelling). Last rock looks like labradorite xls.Nice find Jeff, looks like jasper replacing hematite crystals. Matt N., that last rock looks identical to labradorite I've seen/collected in the Adirondacks near Lake Placid/high peaks.(tu)
Jeff, you should really consider cutting/polishing some of those nice finds at a lapidary club. I have cut either a face or in half about a dozen nice rocks for my sister-in-law and her kids and some turned-out far better than you would have ever thought;)
Matt
A rich pebble of Wood Tin collected from Trevaunance Cove yesterday after a minor storm on Saturday night.
A not brilliant picture of how the specimen looked when wet shortly after being picked up out of a stream channel crossing the beach.
Apart from cassiterite bearing pebbles at Trevaunance cove I collected several of these dark pebbles which have numerous vugs containing greenish yellow acicular tourmaline (var schorl) crystals.
Jason
Those look like a mix of epidote & actinolite, not schorl, and schorl is just black, not greenish yellow ;-) Wayne Corwin Wrote:
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Jason
Those look like a mix of epidote & actinolite, not schorl, and schorl is just black, not greenish yellow ;-)
Wayne,
These are unlikely to be the minerals you suggest.
They will however be a form of tourmaline in a matrix of chlorite. The pebbles Jason collected are quite common on the beach and are typical vein material associated with the hydrothermal lodes in the district.
BTW, I would point out that schorl can vary in colour showing bluish-black tints as well as brownish-black and greenish black - given the small size and translucency of Jason's example I wouldn't put it past being schorl, even if his description sounds a little off. I wasn't aware that tourmaline varieties were named based on what colour they are, more about what elements they contain, schorl is the most likely variety of tourmaline found in the UK.
Also I have found similar coloured crystals at another locality whilst I was collecting with Dale, and he identified them as tourmaline. I don't think my description is off, they are yellowish green acicular crystals! the colour can be seen better with magnification
Here's a pebble I picked up from a beach in Newquay, (Tolcarne or Great Western) Cornwall, UK. it has grains of dark purple fluorite (it's the first example of fluorite I found) the greyish mineral might be quartz and the yellowish green stuff could perhaps be epidote, or it might even be algae! I have washed it numerous time in very hot water and even bleach and I cannot remove the colour.
I have no idea where the pebble originated from.
Jason,
That pebble originated somewhere in the St Austell China Clay district, the green is an altered mica.
It likely made its way to the beach as part of a load of hardcore for a road base or some other construction project. Thanks Dale, that's a mystery solved! A couple more cut and polished pebbles from Trevaunance Cove, cutting and polishing by my friend Peter Trebilcock:
A roughly 2 inch by 2 inch Wood Tin bearing pebble.
A breccia cemented by white 'Dough Tin', brown Wood tin and some small sprays of acicular Cassiterite and quartz. Roughly 4 inches across. Jason
Your Newquay beach pebble is from the non-megacrystic fluorite granite in the St Austell Granite. This small area
(2 square miles) lies between the villages of St. Dennis, Nanpean, Treviscoe, and St. Stephen-in-Brannel. The quarries in the area were worked as hardrock quarries for china stone which was used as a flux in the ceramics industry. Commercial ceramic grades of china stone ranged from Hard Purple, through Mild Purple, Hard White, to Soft White, depending on the Fluorite content and the degree of alteration of the Felspar component of the granite.
A considerable quantity of waste rock was generated in the quarrying of china stone, including your specimen, which apart from the acceptable minerals, contained the pale yellow-green micaceous mineral 'Gilbertite'. Much of this waste was used locally in the construction industry and your specimen would have travelled appox. 10 miles to Newquay. It would almost certainly have originated from the Great Wheal Prosper China Stone Quarry, formerly worked by the Goonvean & Rostowrack China Clay Company.
The specimen shows the effects of considerable tumbling action from Newquay's world famous surfing waves.
A word of warning - many years ago I found a selection of exotic minerals, loose on the cliffs, just a few hundred metres from Tolcarne and Great Western beaches. They had been dumped by an inconsiderate collector/dealer in the area, who, for a few seconds raised my hopes that the Realgar and Orpiment I had found there were new Cornish localtions!!!
Courtenay Hi Courtenay,
Thanks for the detail on the precise source of Jason's pebble. I knew it was from the general district but I am not familiar enough with all the variations in the granite mass to have been more definitive on it. Thank you very much indeed Courtenay, I really never expected to get such a precise location as that!
I don't understand why anyone would dump minerals on a beach, someones idea of a joke perhaps.
I was looking in that area in the hope of finding cummengite, and I did find something blue so I got rather excited but it turns out its just azurite! Is it possible that the location could be Great Wheal Prosper China Clay Pit, Trezaise (Tresayes), Roche, St Austell District, Cornwall, England, UK.
I looked at the locality and noticed there are 2 locations with the name Great Wheal Prosper, and fluorite occurs at both places.
Out of the 2 the one I mentioned above has material that most closely resembles how I imagine my sample appeared before it became pebbleified, although there is only 1 photo, the fluorite is a much deeper purple and there is also the greenish yellow material which must be gilbertite.
I hope I have not killed this thread as it was quite popular but now seems that nobody else has posted since my last post.
Come on folks, get yer pebbles out! A "pebble" from my river at home:
Enns river in Steyr, Upper Austria, Austria.
My feet are enough - i even do not need a car to reach the spot!
A small 2 mm Gold nugget from my home town where i live:
Jason
In my view the Mindat listing of the illustrated Fluorite specimen from Great Wheal Prosper China Clay Works is erroneous. I have a 'twin' specimen to the illustrated one which I personally collected at the Great Wheal Prosper China Stone Quarry back in the 1970s.
The China Clay Works are in the megacrystic Lithium Mica Granite located in the eastern lobe of the St. Austell Granite Mass and in my experience of 30+ years on the management of the two pits owned by the Goonvean & Rostowrack China Clay Company, I can assure you that the China Stone Quarry in St, Dennis parish is the odds-on favourite as the source of your specimen.
Courtenay Thanks again Courtenay for clarifying that. Jeff,
Are you wanting us to attempt to ID these, or just admire your finds? :-D
They all look like glacially deposited pebbles from further north in Canada.
Keep looking though; you never know what you may find along those beaches...... no need for an id
sorry for the lack of info
just posting up some pics Jeff, I'll bet that last one would cut beautifully. I can see it in a wire-wrap!
A large cobble of elvan rock with impregnations of Cassiterite, self collected in 2014 from the foreshore rocks at the site of Wherry Mine on Wherrytown Beach, Penzance.
Another Wherry specimen found on the foreshore rocks, however this one has been split across a chlorite vein revealing the presence of granular and crystalline Cassiterite.
A pebble self collected in early 2015 showing brown Wood Tin. Whilst this example does not show the classic banding associated with Wood Tin, it nonetheless is a Wood Tin and represents a single phase of emplacement that has created brown microfibrous bands surrounding quartz crystals.
A rich - nearly solid pebble of Cassiterite from Lushington Cove, Porthtowan.Dale, your cassiterite specimens in all shape and form fascinate me. Thanks for posting them and please keep doing so. I've only collected small, although complex, cassiterite crystals in vuggy pegmatites in Maine. Guy,
Thank you for your comments - if you visit my home page on here you will see loads more Cassiterite specimens from Cornwall and Devon - not just the 'beach tins' I have posted here. It would be interesting to see your finds as well either on your home page or on an appropriate thread.
Anyway a few more beach sourced specimens:
Part of a very large cobble from Lushington Cove, Porthtowan showing Cassiterite in a brecciated lode matrix.
Not a typical beach specimen, this one was part of a large slab of lode material that had evidently come down in a past cliff fall onto the beach at Lushington Cove. This specimen took a bit of chiselling off the block, but was worth it as once cleaned the crystallisation is still very good.
A small pebble roughly 2.75 inches across of the classical stanniferous elvan from the Wherry Mine, this one shows some nice veinlets of solid Cassiterite as well as embedded crystals. This one was self-collected in early 2016 following winter storms.
A broken open part of a larger water worn block from Wherry Mine on the Wherrytown Beach, Penzance. The character of this material is quite different from the typical stanniferous elvan and is thought to originate from a second mineralised structure at the locality known as Black Lode.
A 30mm by 15mm lens of Cassiterite in arenaceous matrix from the beach below the Wheal Lucy Mine site at Hayle, self collected on the 4th October 2015 from the cove at Black Cliff that lies below the Wheal Lucy Mine site..
A narrow Quartz vein in arenaceous matrix heavily embedded with elongate tetragonal crystals of Cassiterite. Although heavily abraded by wave action crystals up to 8mm in length are visible in the vein. This specimen is approximately half of a larger cobble, self collected on the 4th October 2015 from the cove at Black Cliff that lies below the Wheal Lucy Mine site.
A rich vein of near solid Cassiterite up to 1 inch thick in a quartz/silicified killas & tourmaline matrix. The tourmaline rich face of the matrix shows slickensides indicating this specimen came from a faulted section of a lode. Whilst the bulk of the Cassiterite is massive, there are some small vugs with brilliant, sharp crystals to 2mm. The specimen was self collected on the 3rd January 2016 close to the toe of the debris slope from a recent cliff fall below the Penhalls mine workings. It is uncertain whether this specimen came down in this fall, but it is notable that the specimen is still quite angular indicating it hasn't been subject to a lot of wave action on the beach.
A rich but rather ugly tinstone that was exposed following winter storm 'Imogen'. The Cassiterite is present as mostly anhedral grains in a blue-black tourmaline 'peach'. Self collected on 10th February 2016.
Detail and whole specimen views of a small pebble, approximately the size of a walnut, containing Wood Tin. Self collected in early 2016 from Wheal Margery Cove.
A cut and polished section of a cobble of the stanniferous elvan from Wherry Mine, Wherrytown Beach, Penzance. Whilst not exceptional for the Cassiterite content, this specimen is intersting in that it shows transitions from unaltered elvan in the lower portion, as seen in this view, with clearly defined porphyritic texture of feldspar crystals, to alteration with some sporadic very pale coloured Cassiterite to a zone of greater alteration with patches of tourmaline and more prevalent darker brown Cassiterite.
Collected earlier this year following a winter storm and latterly cut and polisherd by my friend Peter Trebilcock.A small pebble I picked up from a beach in Dorset, which has a vug with chalcedony inside it.
Here are some polished and some natural.....Steve
Collected early on Christmas Eve from the pebble bank sitting atop the wave cut platform adjacent the eastern side of the causeway linking St Michael's Mount to Marazion at low tide:
Part of a very large (340 mm x 300 mm x 180 mm) water worn block of greisenised granite with a quartz vein showing Cassiterite and Wolframite.
The material is clearly derived form the sheeted vein system that can be viewed in-situ on the mount, but fortuitously nature has moved this block to a location where it can be collected.
Note the barnacles present on the specimen, although these have now been cleaned off.
When first collected the block was nearly twice the size seen here, the now missing section being barren of interesting mineralisation. Looks to me like a limestone or dolostone breccia with white patches of gypsum. Is the white due to etching? Can you scratch the white with your fingernail? What do you hope to accomplish by etching it? It looks fine to me as is.
A sample of beach finds. Wet rocks. Don't have to classify anything just sharing some fun finds. Unless you see something interesting.
Happy new year.
Cool banded agate with crystals inside. ?
The purple one weighs about 6 pounds.
Random collection from various locations along coastline in central California.Jeff,
Agree w/ Reiner; I'm not sure etching is going to reveal anything of note and you'd be better suited to leave it as is. Save your vinegar for something with potential. :-D
Michael,
Without knowing where these were collected, I wouldn't know if there were anything interesting to look for. One thing I like doing with groups of rocks like this is to run a UV light over them to see if anything fluoresces. On occasion, I have found some very colourful specimens that appear in natural light to be just boring rocks. Uv light sounds interesting. I've been curious about those. Can you recommend a brand. Also are there lights I can bring to the beach for day or night discoveries.
As too the specific locations...... I keep those to myself. Just me and my girls go. Just say anywhere from willow creek in big sur area up to sf. And there are some really cool locations. Off the beaten trail and you gotta hike a bit.
It is all a variety of chalcedony. Lots of lots of varieties that I am learning about. ( I believe, mixed with some cool carnialan here and there and others. Different kinds all mixed up. as far as color ?....I think these are pretty good for a fun day out. As I do this more and more I am getting pretty good at knowing where my rocks come from if they get mixed up. Sort of.....
Ps. These are stones I collect for my young girls to play with. Magic rocks that make colors when wet......fun times with them. Arts and crafts stuff. But there are hidden treasures mixed in all my storage. The uv light sounds great!
I've got some really cool jade too. Post at a later time. I actually have more fun collecting these chalcedony varieties because it's easier and more to collect.
Quartz and jasper, blood stones, carnelian etc..... Jeff, I agree with Reiner. Also, I am not sure what reason you would want to etch it or bath it in any acid. In all likelyhood, nothing would be found and the piece would just dissolve away with enough time. This is one of them green stones that someone else had posted perhaps in the ID help. It was found on a southern shore of lake Erie and has a labradorite crystal.
1st a picture of past few trips to my spot. They are in 1 side if my utility sink.
2nd & 3rd, some of those stones i selected and put in a rubbermaid bus tub. They are submerged in water.
Rocks with garnet, granitic rocks and heavy sand that is mixture of black magnetic magnetite, red garnet, whitish quartz. I havent examined the sand further. I have to purchase a new loupe and have no microscopes.
1. Looks like a dirty quartzite as in it may have had clay or other materials present before metamorphism.
2. Fine grained basalt? With whitish green rock.
3. Veined rocks.
Stone faces on the one. Pretty cool. Looks so stoic. And calm.
The one with a rock in the middle was found in a 10-12 million year old sea bed. Sand.
The banded one is banded chert. .?
Curious about the first one.
Last is a small collection of jade and jade mixes. Big sur jade.Most of the time folks that collect beaches look for smaller stuff. I do that as well. Here a few of the smaller stuff I've found on beaches.
Sometime when collecting beaches I will slice small pebbles or cobble or break large cobble or boulders to highlight their internal features. Slicing and polishing is very common with lapidarists, but also can show the internal mineralogy. Breaking beach boulders and large cobble is the same as when you are in a quarry, only you typically can access beaches much easier. The one difference being material is very mixed so it is difficult to chase specific minerals
Sometimes collecting on beaches and rivers means sorting through fines with a screen, gold pan, or/or sluice to capture crystals and/or gold. A few examples of what can be found with a little work.
Often, while collecting on the beaches here in Ohio, persons are surprised to see me picking up rocks and ask out of curiosity what I am looking for. They are usually looking for beach glass, rounded pieces of glass discarded somehow into the lake. Maybe persons had tossed their trash into the lake back in the early 1900's? I think some glass pieces may be depression era glass as the fluoresce in black light.
Anyways when I tell them that I look for rocks of certain shapes and sizes they nod their head. When I tell them I am looking for certain rock textures, fabric, compositions etc, I think it kinda goes over their head as their faces look confused. We all carry on in the end. I don't go out looking for the beach glass, but if I see one I like, I'll pick it up. Most often I find them boring. The majority run olive green, clear or beer bottle brown. If i see a cobalt blue or aqua, I usually pick them up.
I would love to have a scope and see what my recent pickup of beach sand looks like magnified. It has dark magnetite, reddish garnet and whitish grains I assume are quartz. I wonder if I'd find other whitish grains such as sillimanite though.
Matt Matt,
Looking at small grains under a microscope is really fun. I never go to a stream, lake, or river without a pan. Moving water tends to concentrate things making them easy to collect. I fill a small bottle with heavies, tag it, and check it out under the scope when I get time. Lots of stuff to see. I have one bunch that I haven't photographed yet that has either sillimanite or scapolite (I suspect the latter) in it. I am fortunate to live in an area where collecting typically starts in early April and sometimes last year-around. This year we're locked in snow and ice so it will be a while unless we get a big thaw. It is quite interesting to search the sands along the Great Lakes (or any shoreline, for that matter) with a loupe or microscope to see what can be found. In Upper Michigan, I occasionally find native copper and silver along the shores of Lake Superior, as tiny flecks in larger cobbles. Keep up the search, guys.......(tu) My first tin bearing pebble of 2017:
A difficult piece to photograph well, but interesting when viewed in the hand.
Collected from the beach at Trevaunance Cove on the 2nd January. Two more cut and polished pebbles from Trevaunance Cove, St Agnes:
These are fossils I found on the beach near the ca and Oregon coastal border.
The sand dollars are 10-12 million years old and found in an ancient sea bed. Sand hills. I live in the micro climate so they are easy to find in my yard.
I'm interested to what is inside the clam........ A few random samples from my collecting near Santa Cruz and San Mateo county coastal bluffs. Mean tide line.
Big sur jade from willow creek. ( my favorite place to collect jade).
Beach pic looking north west from Davenport, ca towards scotts creek.
An unusual looking tin bearing pebble that comprises a breccia with a large clast of Cassiterite. Self collected on the 15th January.
Detail of the Cassiterite.I've seen similar looking in ohio I've seen similar looking in many places of the world! While water tumbled pebbles and small cobbles don't ordinarily interest me, (my wife can go out on the Lake Michigan pebbly beach and gather a bucket load of these in the space of a couple of hours, putting them into a glass vase and adding baby oil to keep their luster bright), your first and especially last picture do intrigue me.
Could these 2 pebbles be water tumbled examples of rootbeer colored fluorite admixed with white bladed celestine? Your locality for their find is not too far from the White Rock Quarry (Clay Center) in NW Ohio. This combination of minerals also is seen from other locations in NW Ohio, SE Michigan, and maybe water tumbled examples from along the nearby Great Lake shorelines in that area?? CHEERS.....BOB Not much sun. But a fun morning. Should be able to make some fun arts and crafts with my girls.
I learned the hard way. I used a steel mesh net to rinse them. I didn't realize it was steel. Simply resting these on the mesh net left shiny scratch marks. I guess I learned most of these are a form of quartz. Trying to classify the chalcedony from the quartz .
Lots of storms are bringing all the silt and run off into the oceans. Bluffs are collapsing thus causing a lot of old gravel spots to be covered. Interesting seeing all the errosion and witnessing the damage of this years storms. A petrified tree trunk fell out of the bluff and was laying at the base. To heavy to carry. If it was a redwood I would have tried harder to collect it. But lots of interesting quartz pebbles are mixed in with the falling debris. Depending how interesting it is, I'd find some helping hands for the trunk. Some fellow students on field camp carried out a large banded iron on a cattle grate, from the side of Seminoe reservoir in Wyoming. That is one great unakite!
I find them on a Lake Michigan beach at Arcadia,
when the sand washes out. is this petrified tree trunk/limb? It fell out of a bluff into an ancient sea bed area. Could be part of the first growth of redwoods? That's why I say limb. It is brittle. There are more pieces but when I pick them up they fall apart. It was the fall I am assuming that made them fall apart. I'll have to find my way through the tick filled brush to find the rest if it's something special. And, Actually it is beautiful so I'd love to get a bigger piece. This one is about 15 inches long and heavy. The was a perfectly circular one with a diameter of about 15-20 inches. I tried picking it up and it had already split into about 6 pieces like a pizza.
So, petrified wood or cool sandstone? Last week I found one but it was heavier and almost like a mix of concrete and iron. Should have got it. Tide has it now but it could be buried. I'll dig it up if it is later in the year.
Errosion. 10-12 million year old sand dollars.
The cream/brown banded material reminds me of a high-grade travertine. 
Micheal; As Matt says these are definitely liesegang rings. We commonly come across them in the Bay of Fundy area of Nova Scotia; very nice. Michael,
The tan material at the top of your post appears to be “wonderstone” which is a trade name for this type of rock frequently used by lapidaries. The name is not very scientific and various materials have taken this name along with various theories on how it is formed.
To learn more, Google the term “wonderstone rock” and click on images. You will see many examples. If you research this term you will find some of the theories on how it is formed. Thanks everyone. I'll have to go back and see if I can find the wall from which this "wonderstone rock" fell from. A nice 10 by 10 foot slab would look t. Hve a great day everyone!:)-D
Found beside a river in northern VietnamNguyen -- Wow. Just wow. Congratulations. --Ken
Monterey Bay, CA
Collected myself 2-22-17Michael,
practically identical banded rock (fine-grained sandstone?) is common in an old quarry here in North Wales.
tom
Part of the core of a large water worn cobble containing considerable amounts of Wood Tin.
Self collected from Trevaunance Beach in January 2017 following a minor winter storm.
Looking for more ideas for art. So far I think the vase is best. Baby oil and vinegar? Amounts?Several of the red and black ones in your first two photos are hematite. Jeff
What did you do to see if they were attracted to the magnet? i tried the direct method which should have cause a drag
just now i tried the flotation method with no response Hi Jeff, can you tell me more about the magnet fishing.
I found these yesterday.
From the Snake River Plains in southern Idaho north of Idaho Falls. Collected March of this year. One of the best water-borne sites I've collected in recent years.
That's a neat fossil piece, Michael. On my latest trip to where I collect on lake Erie south shore,, I found a rounded horn coral. regarding the magnet fishing
my dad told me about it
guys in europe are searching under historical bridges and coming up with neat finds
if you look on youtube people are finding guns, swords and even motorcycles
and no doubt a lot of scrap too
so you buy one or more of these:
http://www.magnet4sale.com/112-lb-holding-power-neodymium-cup-magnet-1-57-magnetic-round-base-mchn-40/
caution: in the video i watched the guy injured his hand when two magnets pinched him
if you buy more than one you bolt them to a plate
then attach via screw gate chain link and then para cord, kite line or arborist throw ball line
something with high breaking strength but not too buoyant
you need to coat the magnets to protect them from impacts
some people melt plastic over the whole thing with a heat gun
i just used an old 12" woofer which had been cooked and was not worthy of a re-cone(which i have done for my 18" and 24" drivers)
then like metal detecting choosing the right location will help you find things
which i have a few spots in mind but i will make the proper rig and then try it at those places
(i would like to get a metal detector at some point too)
i was just dragging it along some old footings for what used to be a pier
had i found the last one you posted, T. Douglas Schonewald
i would have thought it were an agate
i havent gotten into posting my fossil finds on here but it is interesting the type of replacements which occur
just a guess but this rugose seems like it was replaced by feldspar?
just going by the flat cleavage and "look"
[URL=http://s253.photobucket.com/user/subsonicdrone/media/IMG_2352_zpsvxljx05x.jpg.html][IMG]http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh57/subsonicdrone/IMG_2352_zpsvxljx05x.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
and this orthoconic nautoloid seems to have pyrite replacement on certain parts
guess based solely on colour
[URL=http://s253.photobucket.com/user/subsonicdrone/media/IMG_2274_zpsy87h1gwu.jpg.html][IMG]http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh57/subsonicdrone/IMG_2274_zpsy87h1gwu.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
Michael Harwell, youre most recent pics look like bivalves and gastropods
based on my very limited understanding of fossils Rugosa or horn coral would be replaced likely by dolomite or calcite. If they anything else pyrite or silica would likely replace. Jeff,
Try dissolving the Calcite veins to see if nice micro xls are inside. You may start with a loupe, but you'll want a microscope soon enough. Also, anything you see with a dimpled surface, hammer open to see if cavities are inside. You'll get a lot of clays and dull stuff, but some nice micros too. Just be patient... 
I recently picked up these pebbles on one of our Eastern Cape Province beaches. Its a high energy, sandy coastline, so waves rework and smooth off pebbles that get washed up onto the beach. They are sandstone and have cavities produced by weathering of less competent zones in the harder sandstone. The first one is "Alien Rock", the second "Picasso's Pebble" and the third one a virtual replica of drawings of faces scribbled my four year old granddaughter...
Thank you Matt. I've seen some lapidary artist make jewelry out of these particular fossils.
Jeff, thank you for your info . I'm not there yet but find it very interesting. You have lots of fun finds. I need to get a saw. And more time. The local gem society around here allows anyone to use all their equipment on saturdays. But when ever I have free time on saturdays I prefer collecting. one of the days I will start cutting them.
Have fun today. I don't know if I'll get out this weekend. Hi Jeff, great collecting. Remember what Reiner said. The ones with pot holes are good for breaking with a hammer. ( or saw). I broke one yesterday and found a very interesting inner core.
You have a wonderful collecting area up there. Lucky you. Lots of great times being outdoors having fun!!! Great excuse to be outside enjoying nature and life. Good for you. Jeff, the first two in your latest post look like agate of some sort. Interesting, those 2. Jeff
You got a 1/4 of the good beach stones in one trip,,, you lucky dog you,, I mean RockHound ! ! ! For anyone interested in serious mineral collecting on a beach, I highly recommend the excellent recent article by D. Mike Reinke: "Micro-hounding Lake Michigan - A surprising shoreline", Mineral News, 33, #3 (March 2017), pp 1-5. (www.mineralnews.com) Wow, Alfredo! Thank you very much!
Jeff, the first picture after "colorful/interesting", did you notice how the white part of that rock is in a depression?
Because it is a softer mineral, it has weathered more. I'd be fairly certain it is calcite, and dissolving that may reveal micro crystals underneath. More than likely there is nothing there, or if anything, probably clays or other amorphous looking common minerals, maybe even a common feldspar or fibrous amphibole...But that is a start, and seeing the perfection of even the common microminerals is satisfying.
Mike Near Davenport, CA. Rocks I've collected over the years.
Wow, looks like a cobble beach or a sculpture that Ai Weiwei would do ! So beautiful. Have then some value? Or just are then beautiful stones? From your picture dated May 28, you need at least a loupe to inspect it, but you are on your way! That one may be a "dud", most are, but keep looking. These things take time. This a before and after ( still in the process) pictures of a beach stone that I have soaked in white distilled vinegar water. Is there a time frame one uses or stronger solutions. I don have any other specimen like this one. But have been intrigued by its cob web frame of "quartz"? The layers have been approx. orange , white and black unidentified clays ? The more I look at it the more suspicious I am of what appears to be fibers? instinct says stay away. Toss the whole experiment with this stone.
Vinegar is very gentle it can take a couple of days. But dilute hydrochloric acid, the vapors will rust any medal around, and any touching of the water with the dilute acid on clothing will rot clothing. Only use it outdoors. Your sample looks like slag, the amount of that that is around on beaches is disappointing and distracting. Your piece looks like slag I've seen that I guess has cooled slower, becoming somewhat fibrous, I amatuerishly describe it as " fake or manmade amphibole". The 'quartz' you refer to I'd call 'silicate', but yes, still Si based. Yes, toss it. With patience, you'll find real keepers. All part of the learning, discerning process. ok so i read that the effect i was describing in the last post would be pearly lustre..
since photobucket cut me off...
(this thread still works since they are my most recent uploads but many pages on other boards are lost)
i thought i would upload a video instead
did not work out that great
next time i will arrange still photos in a video editor
but you get the idea
i wanted to show the most recent agate (i think) i found
it is just over 3 lbs
note the flat layered section shown at 2:48
and another notable one at 3:22
which i did not even notice until it was photographed
the parallel lines that look like waves almost (to me)
what up with that one! crazy looking
nice agatized (right term?) fossil in there as well
sorry for the low quality
hope you enjoy
https://vimeo.com/227912588 Nice Jeff! I think you have a few nice pieces of blue chalcedony in a couple of your finds . plus a few good "breakers". ( I think). If you ever make to the Bay Area I'll have to invite you to some of my favorite beach collection sites. I'm going to have to sort and photo some of my best as well. I like your work. Today I checked this thread with the astonishing manyfold finds. In this connection I would like to point to the fact, that this kind of activities with stones is very, very popular in far east, especially in China. Many years ago I visited such a exposition of stones (probably river an beach finds, too) in the sea pavilion in Tsingtao. Each of the exhibited stones had a fantasy name. I asked my Chinese colleague to translate some of the names and I remember that one stone was named "frog pronunciation" what ever this stand for. However, the exhipited stones were relatively large (basket ball size).
Anyway, some of the above shown stones would have a high career in China.
Rgds.
Uwe Ludwig The black acicular spray is most probably black tourmaline, especially since the stone seems to be coarse grained, so a pegmatite. Michael, great offer! there are many places i plan to go within canada first so that would be many years down the road.
Uwe, that exposition sounds awesome! back when i drank alcohol i would have a Tsingtao beer occasionally
speaking of basketball sized, my pumelo is flowering
Erik, thanks for the lead. once i get a scope of some kind (maybe digital camera microscope?)
i can look closer at the crystal shape
headed up near georgian bay this weekend hopefully i find something!
bon chance! so despite a nasty forecast, high lake level and a tiny budget I decided to go to lake Superior to hunt for agates
i did indeed find some!
missed a few key spots which i should have investigated... i will have to go up there again!
here are some pictures from the trip including a bunch of garbage i cleaned up and hiked out of semi remote beaches
http://s253.photobucket.com/user/subsonicdrone/library/superior%202017
password is bananas A recent beach find from October 2017:
A nice vein of Chalcopyrite in veinstone matrix. Hey Jeff - your photos have inspired me to go comb the beaches of Lake Ontarios north shore - fantastic photos of some superb looking stuff Jeff;
Your photo #s253 could be of a sedimentary feature called lode casting which is where and an upper bed will flow down into the underlying one. As a kid, some of my very first good finds were from a beach: a plate of red/orange calcite crystals and a pebble of pegmatite loaded with black schorl. I still have those.
Also, I had collected a fist sized chunk of yellowish-green resin which ended up in the garbage as I didn't know yet that amber could be green so I just dismissed it as a piece of manmade material...argggg 
My daughter and I were recently kayaking on the little Colorado River in Texas. We portaged across an island to avoid an upstream rapids. My daughter stumbled upon a curious heavy round rock. After further inspection, we discovered several other grey-silver spheres of various sizes. I then realized that these were pyrite concretions. In fact we found some still attached to the local limestone bedrock. Several of these became ballast and were brought home.
Verry Cool Dean ! ! !
Keep On Rockin' Dean,
That is a neat group of concretions especially the one with the matrix. When I saw the reference to the Colorado River in Texas I had a flash back. I have some family photos of that river and its geology taken in 1947. The first one was taken at Marble Falls prior to the construction of the dam in 1951. The tall Texan on the left was my cousin, “Doc” Swearingin from Weatherford, in the middle was my dad and I must admit that I am the kid on the right. The outcrop on the left is the “marble” that gave the falls and the town their names. The problem is that the deposit is not marble. It was later determined to be limestone that was heavily interspersed with blue chert causing a hardness and color that led to the misidentification.
Doc had spent the night on the ledge just above the water and caught that lone carp. We had hoped for a big catfish for a family fish fry. That ledge is likely under 30 or 40 feet of water now.
On the way back to Weatherford we tried another part of the river. Further upstream, after a long drive on a two track, we came to a beautiful area with outcrops of weathered granite. We did not catch any fish there either. When I see this photo now I wish that I had looked for miarolitic cavities instead!
Larry,
Thanks for the local pics. I always seem to come home with a larger catch than most of the fisherman I see on the little Colorado.
I have also enjoyed your Detroit rock show pictures, as that is where I grew up.
-Dean Well, I'm not going to open all the external links to see which it is which. jeff
it would be nicer if you could post the photos here in Mindat, rather than having to click on all those. Detail of Wood Tin in a pebble found on Trevaunance Beach following the recent storm Fionn:
The whole pebble:
Pebble rich in creamy Dough Tin and brown Wood tin from Trevaunance Cove following storm Fionn:
Rich Cassiterite bearing quartz/chlorite vein with killas wall rock still attached on one side:
Collected on 23rd January 2018 after storm Fionn had shifted the shingle around. Wayne Corwin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
jeff
it would be nicer if you could post the photos here in Mindat, rather than having to click on all those.
Hasn't this been mentioned before?
Agreed, it would be better to have the images on the page rather than a bunch of links. Hello Jeff,
This photobucket thing is a pain. I won't look at them. If you want people look at your photos you need to put them on Mindat, not using a link.
Carbis Bay sands, Carbis Bay, St Ives, Cornwall, England, UK