Rock People

[BlackMagicRose]

I had a spire of Kyanite but it came up missing after my ex brought his girlfriend at the time with him to see his son. I haven't found another one like it either.....but Kyanite is really pretty blue.

[demonichunny]

Oh come now Kestra, we know you like rocks too. We sense the inner nerd lol

[Obscure_Trash]

Oh trust me, were it not for the fact that Petrology is required here for the geology major at UW Madison I would not have touched this class with a 50ft pole. Ever.

Actually until last year it wasn't even on my radar because I didn't know it was required. Everyone was talking about how god awful it was and how they had to come into the lab for 10 hours outside of class time (mind you this is a 3 credit course. I've taken 5 credit courses that were easier than this course) and how no matter how hard they studied they could only pull BCs on the exams. And I sat there being all "NOPE NOT TOUCHING IT"

Turns out it's required... yeah... I was so enthused to find that out.

 

Modal percents.. we're just starting to touch on that on petrology and I don't feel confident in mine either. (20% fosterite or fayalite? Is that 15% retrograde biotite or is that prograde? just why. why do you ask this of undergrads when you havent even properly taught us this and just threw the thin sections at us and expect us to know what to do)

 

but i bet you'll be fine! especially if you have someone you can bounce things off of to catch any simple mistakes. Honestly, if you think you saw something in the thin section, you're probably right. Unless it makes no sense. Then it's probably some weird pseudomorph..

 

i like to ramble too much when i get excited...

Ugh, I think petrology is required p much everywhere or I wouldn't have taken it either. >_> (Although I'm not sure I would have been extended an offer to be a grad here if I hadn't, so maybe it is a good thing even if I thought I'd never have to do it again...)

Yuuuuuuup, it's such a time sink. Esp when you have to draw all the samples at least once and in some cases twice if XPL and PL tell you different, important things. Gluh. Was so jealous of people who had phones that would actually take visible pics through the scope. So nice.

Yours is only three credits!? That is a rip-off. D: (Hah, so our geochem class had no lab, but one of the profs who taught it gave us two, two week labs to complete and OH MY GOODNESS did those take forever. I worked on them for hours for the whole two week period. Meteoric rocks are hard in thin section 'cause they're so different and weird and they have all these really specific minerals in them that we don't normally see.)

 

Ahahaha, do you think it's universal that they never really teach you how to do petrology!? That's so scary. A lot of us were in some class where we briefly touched on petrology before we took petrology and were told the bare minimum because "they'll teach you this for real when you take petrology". Then we got to petrology and they were all "oh, you took that class? Well, you already got a head start! Let's dive on in" hahahahaha. >_>

 

Thanks! I've got some specific things I'm looking for, so I least I have an idea of where I'm headed and it's not a complete guess. I did find this weird, really iron-rich rock in my field site that we're going to do a thin section of, though, and neither my advisor or I have any clue what it is or where it came from or what it's doing there, so that'll be fun.

 

Good luck on your class! Just keep counting down the days. It will eventually end. xP

 

I had a spire of Kyanite but it came up missing after my ex brought his girlfriend at the time with him to see his son. I haven't found another one like it either.....but Kyanite is really pretty blue.

 

Kyanite is soooo pretty! Sorry yours got lost. D:

 

(Ahahaha, the first time we went to see kyanite in the field, my prof led us halfway up this steep mountain where we couldn't even all stand around without falling into each other to show us a nice outcrop of it. Turns out someone from a previous class had gone back after class and chipped it off for themselves so we didn't even get to see it. That's all he could talk about the rest of the day - how mad he was over that.)

Edited February 24, 2015 by SockPuppet Strangler

[Ribombee]

I never could figure out how to get a good pic through a scope. I'm so used to having to change everything because my glasses get in the way, anyway. It took me forever to properly learn to use a scope because of them.

[rendragyn]

Ugh, I remember using the scope - it made me motion sick

 

I did a few subjects of geology at University and have a few samples I collected. I've got a spindle bomb and a few potential olivine geodes, but I need to track down someone with a diamond saw to open them up since olivine is so crumbly from this site. I also have several tiny garnets collected from the shoreline of a crater lake and a fossil of a gastropod (I think).

 

I also have a tectite, but I bought that one.

 

I ended up majoring in Chemistry, but I did enjoy most of the geology I did.

[BlackMagicRose]

LOL......I would have loved to see it in it's natural setting I guess you could say. This link has what mine was similar to. Mine was more of the 6 or 8 sided crystal wand deal.....it was about 2 and a half inches long and as round and thick as a cigar. It could be here somewhere but that gal had "sticky fingers" you could say. I got a lot of my crystals and stuff from a "new age" shop. There was one down at the beach so you could get your rock and metaphysical and crystals shopping done and then go play at the beach.

[Daydreamdragon]

@Mystic_Halo You're right! I didn't know how to translate it even after some google searches, but it is in fact goldstone. The vendor also had plain, sparkling orange goldstone.

[RockChick]

I just found my smoky quartz! Yay!

[BlackMagicRose]

I guess it would help if I posted the link....LOL *head desk* http://www.whitemagickcrystals.com/blue-ky...tural-polished/

That site could get me in trouble.....I would be ordering off it if I had money.

[Obscure_Trash]

You guys may be interested in this. My friend is doing her Master's on the formation of pyrites in uranium roll fronts, so she was looking around her pyrites on the SEM. She found a section that reminded her of a nebula, so we, of course, had to create this. xP

Edited February 26, 2015 by SockPuppet Strangler

[Shienvien]

Looks pretty, Sock. I have one slice (?) of stone that looks like sunset over sea ... it was actually bought to me just because of that (by people who have noticed my windowsill's condition). Might take picture of it later, if I remember to.

[RockChick]

You guys may be interested in this. My friend is doing her Master's on the formation of pyrites in uranium roll fronts, so she was looking around her pyrites on the SEM. She found a section that reminded her of a nebula, so we, of course, had to create this. xP

That totally looks like a nebula, that's awesome. In other news I've found my moonstone and my haematite. Yay!

[BlackMagicRose]

I need more crystals and stuff. There is a great place on the Oregon Coast at Gleneden Beach called The Crystal Wizard. There's also supposed to be a place in Salem called Journey's. Keep in mind if you want to find some great crystals and stuff check out the Metaphysical shops and stuff. Even Llewellyn online has some pretty awesome stuff. I have a smoky topaz set in gold that was my Gran's....it's almost the size of a US Quarter.

[Paradisiske]

i have a nice collection of some crystals

[spatio]

I can't believe I haven't seen this thread before x_x serves me right for staying 100% of the time in the art parts of this forum

 

about to finish up my undergraduate geology degree (yay!) and yeah I felt the petro pain. Ours was a 5 hour class and yep we had quite a few all-nighter microscope parties in the lab. Invertebrate paleontology was the other big one. Has anyone here taken hydrogeology? I have to take it next year and I hear it's a doozy.

 

also, re: rock collections. Mine is, uh, most of my room at this point.

And yard.

//drowns

Found a really nice deposit of geodes a few years back and basically just filled my yard over the years with geodes. Some were really big, too, >1ft diameter. Crystals weren't that big, and mostly calcite/quartz, but found quite a few with pyrite, ferroan dolomite, and a kind of iridescent black mineral and a highlighter-yellow one that I'll probably have to sneak into the lab to identify.

Edited May 21, 2017 by dragonwinxzodiac

[irrelevantindigo]

Ohhh a rock thread~

 

I'm a uni student so I never have a ton of excess cash to buy rocks, but over the years I've collected two amythyst pieces (both are a very dark purple~), smokey quartz, a trilobite, a piece of bismuth, some jade, an ammonite piece, purple and orange goldstone, turquoise, and some generic quartz/geodes.

Maybe I'll post a picture if I can find the box I keep them in.

[Obscure_Trash]

about to finish up my undergraduate geology degree (yay!) and yeah I felt the petro pain. Ours was a 5 hour class and yep we had quite a few all-nighter microscope parties in the lab. Invertebrate paleontology was the other big one. Has anyone here taken hydrogeology? I have to take it next year and I hear it's a doozy.

 

also, re: rock collections. Mine is, uh, most of my room at this point.

I've taken straight up hydrology (no hydrogeology offered), but if hydrogeology is anything like the hydrology I've done (I suspect it will be), ooooh yup. I hope your math is on the up and up.

 

Also I can't believe spatio is a geo major just like me! =o Speaking of, I'm officially graduating with my MS, just waiting for the "admin" to publish my thesis.

 

I've moved a few times, so I took that as incentive to leave most my collection behind, except a few really cool rocks from field camp (like some cool mica garnet schists and other things you don't see all over the place here) and some great fossils.

[spatio]

That's awesome Sock! Congrats! I'm in the process of doing my senior thesis :'U

And... Good to know. Rocksquad will be suffering together next semester, then.

 

I wish I had it with me, but I've got a really cool trilobite cephalon I found on a field trip. I'd post a picture of it. His name is Chuffles. Over here all we really have are Ordovician fossils out the wazoo.

[Wintermute]

I've taken straight up hydrology (no hydrogeology offered), but if hydrogeology is anything like the hydrology I've done (I suspect it will be), ooooh yup. I hope your math is on the up and up.

Hey, my parents were hydrogeologists! My dad even has a Ph.D. in that field.

 

Since my parents have degrees in the geological sciences, I've developed a fondness for rocks of all kinds. I was the go-to person for rocks and minerals when I was doing Science Olympiad in high school, and won a couple of medals in that event. Rock shops are among my favorite places to visit and just browse around, and I can identify a fair number of the specimens thanks to all the studying I did for SO.

 

My parents have collected a number of pieces of petrified wood, a couple of small trilobites, and many, many "sand roses" (Wikipedia) from when they both worked in Saudi Arabia.

 

My favorite minerals are malachite, azurite, tanzanite, lapis lazuli, opal, and plain old amethyst.

Edited May 24, 2017 by Wintermute

[DoodleMax]

(Don't wanna butt in, so using parentheses...)
(I have several types of rocks and minerals that I've accumulated over the years. Most of my collection is simple quartz, since they're shiny and everywhere, but I have a wide variety of random rough samples. Examples along the spectrum of roughs I have include:
- A giant quartz geode that's twice as big as my head (speaking of geodes: I also have the two halves of an amethyst geode the size of a tennis ball)
- A pumice stone almost the size of a basketball
- A small chunk of pure(ish) sulfur
- A marble-sized cube of what I think is bismuth
- A quarter-inch-thick slab of mica the size of my palm
- An amethyst crystal (technically two, but grown together) a bit smaller than my fist
- A triangular piece of obsidian (I think I actually have two, but I can't find the second piece)

- God knows how many small chunks of pyrite
- Infomercial voice: And much, much more!
I can't claim to be an expert on rocks and minerals, but I certainly love collecting them, in every form (except dust, that's just messy)!)

Edited September 27, 2017 by DoodleMax

[Qwackie]

Here's a bit from the rock collection.

That big milky and smokey quartz geode was found locally, then the weird one on the bottom right is some coquina found at the beach. The thing to the right of that is a calcite geode, also found locally. The yellow quartz in the back was found locally as well lol. Then there's a rose quartz and an amethyst chunk, a piece of petrified wood, and a pretty big clear quartz point.

I'm a geology major I like rocks.