Heres the stones i found on my second diggin trip, these came from el paso county. im pretty sure that a couple are jasper or petrified wood but as im still ignorant to most of this stuff i figured id ask some more seasoned people.
thanks for lookin!


Below is one i believed to be jasper

heres what i believed to be petrified wood

at first i thought quarts but the texture is smooth almost like a hardened resin

pretty sure this is just a peachy colored quartz but it sure is pretty in the light!

more suspected jasper? no real idea though haha

more of the quartz looking stone with a texture of hardened resin. this one was one of my favorite finds of the day. its such a vibrant yellow/gold in the light

another possible jasper shard?

not sure at all on this one, the texture is very rough yet smooth at the same time, kinda like gypsum almost but it feels very solid. striped, grain lookin pattern that runs lengthwise down the whole stone

more of the resin like rock

one of the cooler pieces of that resin like rock found that day

feels like some type of sandstone (this is also last picture)

So... this, I think, becomes less about giving you fish, and instead giving you the pole and some bait. ;)

First, specific gravity will help a lot here, especially on the more gem-like stuff that is free of matrix. I highly encourage you to look at this link... it teaches a basic, fast method: http://www.johnbetts-fineminerals.com/jhbn...fic_gravity.htm

http://www.gemselect.com/gem-info/specific-gravity.php has a great list of the specific gravity of many gem stones, as well as clues to the composition and expected structure for each gem.

Note, you wont find petrified wood on there, as how the wood gets crystallized tends to throw S.G. off as a good tool mark. A good way to tell petrified wood from other things is to use a decent lens with 10X or better magnification, and look to see if you can identify structure that is fibrous and vesseled, as you would normally expect from wood. In fact, doing so, with a practiced eye, can even help you narrow down the kind of tree it originally was from. Earth Journal has a pretty slick link for helping with this: http://www.evolvingearth.org/learnearthsci...trifiedwood.htm

Finally, you know the scratch test. That in combination with specific gravity should help you out a long ways without having to break out torches and black lights ... with a few exceptions. Everything you need to know about Mohs Hardness: http://geology.com/minerals/mohs-hardness-scale.shtml

Can't do more than this... online ID's are for the experts, of which I am not by a long shot. The rest of us just resort to science until we get smart.

Jason, you sound like a Nutter.


LoL, waiting for you to post...

That guy.

But no, his info and test(s) is spot on, he might not be a "nutter," but that's the best he's gunna be called by me.

Cept his last line... I'd resort to a pair (reading, you know who you is) of club members, rather than "just resort to science until we get smart."

thanks for the links! sorry for posting so many stones. im someone that sucks at learning unless its showed in person so no matter how much i read the stickies it was greek to me. ill have to pay attention when my friend tests some of his stones this weekend

guess ill have to invest in some good magnifying tools!