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[Rei]

So, a few days ago I found my first jasper vein, jasper embedded in the (fractured) bedrock itself. I set out to dig it.

My first day was ups and downs. As we pulled out chunks, we were overwhelmed, massive rocks with bright jasper splotches on the exterior. With great effort we hauled some of these big rocks home (along with smaller ones)... only to find out that on every last one, it was just surface deposits. None were worth keeping. :Þ

I didn't give up and went back, and this time focused on only the brightest, non-splotchy stuff. It payed off - I got some nice chunks jasper, solid all the way through. Unfortunately the largest piece, about 500 grams, broke in two as I was extracting it... not sure if it's my fault or if it was already fractured. Need to work on my finesse!

As I was leaving, I took a new route and stumbled into a rock field with lots of chrysoprase and calcite nodules, maybe 20 meters away. The largest piece was huge and embedded in the ground, and I no longer had my tools with me - I'll get it next time. I have no clue how much of that rock is chrysoprase... hopefully all of it! :) I also have no clue whether it's sitting on/embedded in bedrock or is well above it, so I have no clue whether it's a vein or just a deposit.

[Mark Ost]

Is that a rock hound??

[Mark Ost]

oh now I read the title; of course! Beautiful and wild country you live in. A geologist would think they had died and gone to Valhalla. Fire and brimstone are not so bad!

[Mike Wood]

Thanks for showing these photo's Rei, the green chrysoprase boulders look interesting. The blueish translucent material next to the green material looks more like good chalcedony. These boulders would certainly be worthy of further attention!
Cute doggie, BTW.

[Pierre Joubert]

[Rei]

[Rei]

So, I went out again today and got myself nice and dirty hunting rocks on my land. I first sought out that chalcedony previously pictured. On the way I kept finding calcite crystals littering the hillside and green/yellow/white chalcedony veins embedded into the bedrock. I really have no clue how to get at stuff that's literally *embedded* without destroying it. :Þ

I got to the previously pictured one, and miraculously I extracted it all, in one piece! I won't know until after cleaning how much of it is chalcedony, but I think a lot of it. The stone as a whole is several kilograms.

Searching more in the area, I found yet another type of chalcedony, which I'd call a rainbow jasper. I was finding little bits and pieces in an area, especially under a dwarf birch on the eroding hillside. I'm trying to *restore* the hillside, so I really didn't want to harm it, but it became increasingly obvious, it was grown all throughout this beautiful stone patch. Eventually I gave up and uprooted it (through tried to replant it elsewhere nearby afterwards).

While in the beginning, extraction was going fairly well, without *too* much breakacage (beyond the natural fracturing), as time went on, I found I was breaking it more and more with my attempts to extract it (it just seems to keep going and going!). Ultimately I decided to stop, take a step back, and try to think up a better way to get it out (again, back to the prior mentioned problem, how to remove stones without ruining them?). I figure if I wait long enough, rain will help clean it and make it easier to see what I'm doing, too. Hopefully.

I think I'll take some time off from collecting and work more on cleaning and processing my (accumulating!) inventory at home. :) I've got an oxalic test going on, not sure how it's going. I'll probably start a hydrochloric test tomorrow. Unfortunately, I can't find iron out here, and it'd probably take months to try to re-route it to Iceland because so few companies ship directly, so it'll be a while before I can clean anything that looks like it may have calcite in it. :(

[Pierre Joubert]

I like this last piece(rainbow jasper). Remember, Oxalic acid WILL dull calcite and the only way (that I know) to remove the dullness, is to dip the calcite specimen in hydrochloric acid for a few seconds.

[Rei]