Texas Fossils
Petrified wood, fossilized wood from Houston, Texas and from Hempstead, Texas.
Texas Fossils
Petrified wood, fossilized wood from Houston, Texas and from Hempstead, Texas.
New York Fossils
Tentaculites from Upstate New York, outside of Schoharie.
“Food of the Rockhound Gods”
From many different rockhound trips, each one longer than we had originally planned, we developed a strategy for food and water that helps preserve space in your pack, and to reduce and avoid waste. Rockhounds follow the creed to leave an area in the same, or better shape than how you found the area. Remember that after rockhounding, you are leaving with more, and quite a lot heavier material than at the beginning of the day. Rockhounds always carry out their trash, but there are tips and strategies to minimize trash, and to work with the environment, not against it.
The strategy is to consume all the food you bring, with minimal plastic waste to return by repurposing any plastic bags. We always make it a tradition after every rockhounding trip to plan in advance where we will celebrate with a steak and a baked potato.
Rockhound, and eat, drink, and be merry!
“Nice Tools if You Can Get ‘Em”
Depending on one’s budget, your mode of transportation, your style of backpack or wagon, and the number of rockhounds in your party, a number of other tools can be helpful, and can be used depending on the locale, public versus private lands for instance.
One time we had returned from collecting geodes from a dried up creek bed in Southern Indiana. We had driven out to Southern Indiana, filled the trunk of the rental car with geodes (probably stripped the shocks on the back wheels of the poor rental car too), and drove back to Manhattan’s Upper East Side. We had a strategy, and tool in mind to crack the baseball to honeydew melon sized geodes, but we had one geode the size of a basketball, and no idea how to crack it. As we were driving through Manhattan, we saw some street workers repairing a section of street using a jackhammer. We were able to pull over and get the attention of the city workers, and we asked “Gentlemen, any chance you could help us out and crack open a giant geode for us please? We’ll gladly pay you.” The city workers looked at each other, and then told us to “get the hell out of here.”
So we decided to get our own jackhammer!
“Points” to consider before Investing in a mini jackhammer:
Rockhounds and Metal Detector Enthusiasts Unite!
“Tools of the Trade”
This section deals with the rockhounding tools suggested for most any surface, locale, environment. In another section we will deal with specialty tools that complement the following tools, but for quartz, pyrite, fossils, for example, these are the tools required. Please note that depending on the maker, some of these tools may be labeled or branded differently. The tool combo that every rockhound needs is a hammer and chisel. The technique of cracking open rock is to find a naturally occurring crevice or seam, and widen and force it open to split and separate the rock. Then find or create another crevice or seam and separate or split the rock as you work to find the crystal, or lack thereof. Another chapter describes rockhounding techniques in detail, but for every rockhounding adventure, follow these 3 rules.