Gem and Mineral show

I have never met John, but of course I have seen him on the Gemmology forums and have some of his cutting patterns. I really like the Garnet family of stones due to the wide variety of color. I do have some spessartite and hessonite rough as well as a few small tsavorite stones for when I can carefully concentrate. If its a crystal, I like it Welo opals are large and wonderful, and some faceted ones are in the kilo$ range, but I like transparency.

 

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Take her to Venice/Manasota Key/Nokomis Beach, Florida. I spend the entire day walking up and down the shore collecting little shark teeth. I always come home with a hundred or so, plus plenty of fossil stingray barbs. You can still get really big meg teeth if you scuba dive just a couple hundred yards out into the Gulf of Mexico. One guy that does that says it's about 30 feet down, and that some people actually FREE DIVE it! Really? Is that even possible?!
http://www.visitsarasota.org/article/authentic-florida-venice-shark-tooth-capital-world

 

Very neat! Keep em coming.

 

The closest thing I have to a gem is my Fire agate, though the used to make trinitite into jewelry until reports of radiation burns.

 

I picked this up on the Nokomis beach. It is quite large but I am not certain if it is a tooth or some other part.

My sister has a house in Nokomis.

 

Here’s a neat sample for all you rock hounds:



I’ve had these samples in the collection for about 50 years. As a kid I imagined that the red spots were petrified dinosaur blood. The greenish colored stone is opaque and I believe it is commonly called blood-stone or blood-jasper. (Is that correct?) My examples have perfectly round red spots. Most of the examples on the Internet include either no red or streaks of red color. Perhaps some of our mineral experts are familiar with this stone. Here is a slice:



My grandmother once told me that blood stone was the official stone for the astrological sign Aries. That information stuck with me because my sign is Aries. My mother taught me that my birth stone for April was diamond. I've tried mining diamonds in Murfreesboro Arkansas but came home empty-handed. Post ‘em if you got ‘em.

 

C89 ... ummm sorry, I can't recall what you do for a living? (are you a Geologist?)

 

Nope. I just have the collector gene which forces me to collect coins, rocks, guns, guitar picks, etc. I typically don't get to blow stuff-up like you. I'm spending my time nowadays opening new Vinyl record plants.

Here are some carved rocks in my collection:

First up is "The Thinker" She's a lady.


This next rock depicts a couple horses:



This last one is a little spiritual & that's it for my carved rocks.

 

Those red inclusions are likely hematite. Nice tray of stones you have there.

 

Funnel Beaker Culture
Denmark, Germany and Southern Sweden
Younger Stone Age
Early Neolithic
BC 4300-2800
Flint TRB Silex
90 mm x 37.6 grams
Recovered 1871 Ulstrup,Denmark
Provenance: ex. Andersen Family Collection ex. Private Auction Heidelberg, Germany

Inscribed Ulstrup Refonces 1871

 

Excellent!

 

Got this the other day

 

Clovis point. Early Paleoindian period. 15,000 - 9,000 B.C.
Clovis points are the characteristically-fluted projectile points associated with the North American Clovis culture. They date to the Paleoindian period around 13,500 years ago and are named after the city of Clovis, New Mexico, where examples were first found in 1929.

 

Well 2 more I finished in the last couple of weeks. The first is a fairly rare material called clinohumite. This one is 4mm and about .9 ct. The price on this material has skyed in the 10 years since I bought a parcel. This is only the second stone I have cut of it.



This one is just an amethyst, often considered an inexpensive 'beginner' gemstone for low level jewelry, but I love the mix of colors that some rough comes in. This is from a piece of Amethyst I bought by the piece becuase it has much of the color mix of what sometimes is called "Siberian Amethyst", but Uruguay also has some that is almost a match such as this. Amethyst needs to be oriented correctly before cutting so a thick layer of dark purple doesn't hide red and blues.


This was hard to photo as it is fairly thick being 10mm diameter. The flash near the 5 o'clock area is from the lighting. Just to continue the thread Jim

 

Very nice work Jim.

 

I really like the clinohumite. I am not familiar with it.

 

Here is some info.
https://www.gemselect.com/gem-info/clinohumite/clinohumite-info.php
It is somewhat difficult to facet, as it tends to shatter if you hit it at a certain plane. The one above was to be a 6mm, but a part broke off , so adjusted

 

Well, it´s not "my garden" but I know that some of ye will like this:

https://figshare.com/articles/S1_Movie_for_Lomax_et_al_2017_PLOS_ONE_-_Ammonite_drag_mark/4502807

.......................................................................very "curious"!!!