CATEGORIES

Memento Mori

HERKIMER DIAMONDS & CRYSTAL HEAD VODKA

DIGGING FOR DINOSAURS

Exploring Montana's Dinosaur Trail

HANDLE with CARE!

Radioactive Rocks and Minerals

Easy Pickins' at Australia's Agate Creek

As a member of a few Australian Facebook fossicking (rockhounding) groups, I had been seeing photos of an amazing variety of cut and polished agates posted by people who had found them at Agate Creek.

Shakespeare's Gemstones

Elizabethan Gems; Literal and Literary

MINERALS TO BEWARE OF Myrickite

Some venomous snakes and stinging wasps and bees advertise their dangerous nature with bold red, yellow, and orange colors that seem to say, “Stay away!”

Hell's Canyon Petrified Wood

WHAT TO CUT

NEPTUNITE

Benitoite’s Uncommon Partner

Nafplio Archeological Museum

Bronze Age Jewelry Rival Contemporary Designs

A Different Decoration From the Back

BENCHTIPS

Volcanoes Continue to Capture Headlines

EARTH SCIENCE IN THE NEWS

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.