CATEGORIES

SMITHSON, SMITHSONITE, AND THE SMITHSONIAN

ROCK SCIENCE

“PETOSKEY STONE” Michigan's State Stone

FOSSIL FINDS

Digging at the McDonald Ranch

In June of 2020, the Central Oregon Rock Collectors club went on a field trip to the McDonald Ranch near Ashwood, Oregon. The McDonald Ranch offers petrified wood, angelwing agate, and thundereggs.

MAGNETITE: A NATURAL HISTORY

An Iron Oxide that Changed the World

TETRAHEDRITE-TENNANTITE: Which is Which?

Unassuming, handsome, and confusing minerals

Amber and the Komboloi Tradition

Exploring the Science and Mindfulness Behind the Practice

CHANNELING A MOTHER ROCK

Mineral Constituents of the Chert Complex

Cerro de Trincheras

Trail, Museum & Petroglyphs South of the Border in Sonora, Mexico

Creating A Decorative Feature

BENCHTIPS

STUDYING THE PAST OF Petrified Wood

Trust Plant Anatomy To Be Your Guide When Working In the Present

THE GARNET FAMILY

Spanning the Spectrum of Mineralogy

Ugly Rocks Can Contain Beautiful Treasures

From the outward appearance of certain ironstone or siderite nodules, they might seem to be ugly-looking dirty rocks, but they often hide beautiful treasures inside.

LABRADORITE A Feldspar Mineral with a Rainbow Inside

Collectors often dig labradorite as a colorful rock, but it is actually a mineral, not a rock. It is one of a half dozen varieties of feldspar divided into two groups that make up the crust of the earth. One group is the potassium feldspars, including microcline. The other group is a plagioclase feldspar, including labradorite.

LEARNING FROM A Legend

VISITS TO LUCKY STRIKE MINE PRODUCE GREAT MEMORIES AND MATERIAL

“ TOUCH THE MOON ” WITHOUT LEAVING EARTH

Discovering Similarites Between Space and the Upper Midwestern U.S.

GOLD MINING IN DAHLONEGA, GEORGIA

History and Panning Adventures

THE NICKEL BEHIND THE NICKEL

The word “nickel” is a homonym with two distinct meanings. It refers to both our five-cent coin and an element. Everyone is familiar with the coin, but not necessarily with the element.

The Golden Iron Mineral

PYRITE’S MANY CRYSTAL FORMS KEEP COLLECTORS FASCINATED

Idaho Star Garnet

Brilliant colors enhance the beauty and add to the value of many of our gemstones, especially those that are clear or translucent. And I like any color… as long as it is red. For that reason, the blood-red ruby is about my favorite gemstone. And in museums around this country and in Europe I have seen carefully cut cabochons containing startling six-rayed stars that seem to slide over the surface of the stone as it is rotated in the light. It is no wonder that, for hundreds of years, the star ruby has been one of the favorite stones of royalty.

New Discoveries in Newfoundland

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND ROCKHOUNDING HELP TO UNCOVER FASCINATING TREASURES AND HISTORY

GEOLOGY IN THE NATIONAL PARKS

The Science Behind the Scenery

A New View of Mineral Museums

This year of 2021 certainly started out to be disappointing for many mineral collectors. We were all looking forward to a host of mineral-related activities. Instead, few mineral shows and mineral activities on the calendar remain, so the first months of this year were devoid of organized mineral activity.

Captivated By Copper

Soldiers’ Discovery Leads to a Century of Mining at Pearl Handle Open Pit

ROOSEVELT DAM AGATE: A Gem Loaded with History

The Roosevelt Dam agate is a very limited-occurrence lapidary material, uncovered during the excavation of the Theodore Roosevelt Dam in Arizona, hence the obvious name of Roosevelt Dam agate.

GEORGIUS AGRICOLA'S: DE RE METALLICA

465 Years Old and Still Relevant

Trisparkle 12 Design Marks New Approach

I want to thank Jim Perkins for his many years of providing outstanding faceting designs for the Rock & Gem readership.

Scientists Looking at a Possibly Undetected Volcano in Alaska

Is there a previously undiscovered volcano within Alaska’s Aleutian chain of islands? A team of scientists recently presented their findings surrounding this possibility during a meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

QUARTZ

COMMON, BUT NOT CONVENTIONAL

Discovering the Splendor of SLAG

A pile of slag remaining from copper smelting operations of 1930s Cottonwood, Arizona is one area of focus for Minerals Research, Inc. (MRI), the company pursuing a 15-20 year process to remove the pile using innovative recovery technology.

HUNTING FOR THUNDEREGGS

Uncovering A “Ghost” Volcano’s Treasures