Friday, January 22, 2016

Dear desert rock hound people...

...what are these green rocks?

7 comments:

  1. That depends. How do they taste?

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  2. It's been decades since I was somewhat seriously collecting (yeah, I was just a kid LOL). My guess is olivine. A Google search on the term will show you lots of pics so you can compare.

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  3. How fabulous to have found those in your area! Avocadocites are usually only found on Hawaii.

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  4. Have you been eating a lot of broccoli? I think you need more water in you diet.

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  5. They are "leaverites." Leave her right there.

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  6. I'm gonna say epidote. Both olivine and epidote occur in metamorphosed areas...such as Ogilby Rd. One of the distinctions is cleavage. Olivine is more brittle and exhibits poor cleavage whereas epidote has good cleavage across one plane. Both the piece at the center of your palm and the one beside it show cleavage as seen by the "layers." If you tap them with a hammer and the "layers" hold together it might be epidote. If they crumble into bits, it's more likely olivine.

    This article

    http://geology.com/minerals/olivine.shtml

    says one of the biggest deposits of olivine is on the San Carlos Reservation east of Phoenix. It's possible the same formation extends to Ogilby Rd. The URL above has a search field in the upper right where you can find info on epidote. Knowing a bit about Moh's hardness scale (in Wiki) and specific gravity can help with field identification.

    You might wanna keep an eye out for gold nuggets...there've been several recent finds...probly washed out by last year's rains.

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