Any fellow geology buffs here?

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As many on here know, I am majoring in geology. I would like to know if there are any other people on here majoring in geology, or are fascinated with geology, or just have a decent-sized rock collection.

Tim

I used to be into geology, but not so much any more. I think I can still keep up in a conversation though.

I am interested in geology. I have a bachelors in it and am a geology PhD "drop out". Long story... My areas of particular interest are geochemistry, hydrology/hydrogeology, climate change related topics relavent to geology and envrionmental contaminants.

Wanna chat?

I do think Tim has left WP, perhaps he'll see the notification and make a brief hello, maybe a long one.

In relation to your "long story", I don't think I've ever told a short one in my life.

School was, and probably would still be, a living hell for me, so I can't talk but from a seat of my pants points of view and even then it wouldn't, maybe, be from your angle. But you know what, the way I had to learn was just like this. You can go out just as far as you want with what interests you and when you're over my head, I'll say so.

Like I said I coat tailed behind the old man for years and you might see me intermix, most likely will, true geology with fossils, but more then likely I'll talk more about what I said first. The archaeology aspect of lithics, material, where they came from, ect. umm and yeah glaciers and...... the great thing about any real obsession, once you're into it deep enough, you start to see the other little glitters around you and they can lead you into other things. For example you mentioning hydrology sent me back to a motel room in New York state and night long discussion with a young woman, my wife was there too, who got stuck with what the well known's didn't want to deal with. Obsidian debitage, I think from the Isle of Crete, among other topics that night. Was she an aspie, dunno, but we sure as hell spoke the same language, so did a lot I met in that field of work. She now had her PHD in lost languages and last I knew she was in Israel and had gotten married to an Astronomer. Now I wonder what those two are up too, lol. Ok that was far out, but far out is all good too.

Use to work a long side of Geomorphologists all of the time too. Good money in that one, for a good one that is, they're worth their weight in gold. But the good ones, the really good ones saw what I said above, they were interested in the glitters around the field of choice.

Umm my spelling sucks and this spell check isn't going to be able to do me much good with some words, maybe. It already doesn't like the word lithics.

Welcome to WP, by the way.

ME, I have a decent sized mineral collection also, and also enjoy spelunking. Although I am very far from being a expert
Here is the most recent mineral I have found, dont have a clue what it is yet, have looked in my mineral books, but havent done any tests yet to figure it out. Dont laugh if it is nothing I just think its pretty, with the blue, might just be slag with silica or something in it



Todd

Ahh someone else from Penna. I'm up on the New York/ Pa, border, Tioga County. Have you put it under a black light, mayve UV light is different not sure? I think that's what John used, now his speciality was geology, but I met him doing the shovel bum gig. he was from Lock Haven as I recall and always had his "light" with him. We went tracking back in the deeps of West Virginia looking for chert sources. Didn't find any but the fossils were just every where. Very cool find you have. Went looking for geodes near some of the older abandoned coal mines near me, hard coal. Found them but all turned out to be filled with mud. I would dearly love to find the Pa. Jasper sources, two different kinds, one is near Penn State and the others are over in the general areas of Phillie, along with argillite and a whole bunch of other stuff. Argillite is really strange stuff, fresh out of the ground it looks very "solid" and can be worked in to tools, but, after exposure to, humm how to word this, the ground, as in dirt, it leaches out and can be really tough to recognize, very porous looking, grainy. You use the tongue test on it to know for sure as well as bone. Rhyolite is over near and a bit west of Gettysburg and if you get on the right creek it is just plain everywhere, Very grainy, but the colors are cool and turning that into tools is a bit different it tends to flake in broader debitage..gads!! I did warn you.

geology rocks!

Yes! Geology does "rock"! I rather enjoy bad geology puns..... I have always wanted one of those t-shirts that says "Gneiss Chert". That has to be one of the funniest I have seen. The runner up is "Low angle thrusting leads to orogeny". It sounds really AWFUL, but it is actually a factual statement! Hehehehe.....

I don't know what the rock/mineral in the photo is. I am not so great with minerology, really. It sort of looks like some sort of sedimentary rock with manganese on it. Sort of along the lines of a concretion or something. The blue is a stumper, however. I don't know what that is. I have seen limestone with manganese deposits on it during some cave exploring I have done and know that it is common in the karst found in Kentucky and surrounding. You are in Pennsylvania, however. It is also possible that it is slag from some sort of refinery. Where did you find that again? What was nearby? Any rubble from furnaces, etc....

Thanks for giving some life to this thread, by the way.... It is nice to chat about just "whatever" seems interesting. I may send that photo along to a few acquantences from university and see if anyone else has any guesses.....

I know what your rock is!! ! I more or less knew that I was looking at some sort of concretion (fancy word for sediment that has had an ion rich solution of "X" move through and fill in any pore spaces). In this case we are talking about some sort of carbonate sedimentary rock which may have very little pore space. Concretions found in carbonate rich sedimentary rocks are often composed of Fe and Mn. The prevailing theory seems to be that these ions work their way into "micro" pores that are so small they can only be seen using a scanning electron microscope. They do this "in solution". In this case, there is that bright blue color that threw me off and made me question what I was looking at. I was thinking copper, but I do admittedly suck at minerology... However, I think that I am correct about that because it seems logical that there could be Cu ions in the water because Cu is often found along with Fe. That would suggest that the blue mineral in the above photo is likely "azurite" because of its likely association with Fe and because of its deep blue color and dull appearance. As for the remainder of the specimen, I readily recognize that I am looking at a sedimentary concretion (likely carbonate) of Fe and Mn.

Very cool, by the way! I have a few Mn nodules (concretions) that are marine fossils, but I have never seen one that had azurite on it. That is a really pretty mineral.

In closing.... you have found a piece of sedimentary rock that has Fe and Mn concretions and an overgrowth of the mineral azurite. You can, with a high degree of confidence, tell people that is what it is without fear of being too terrible "off".

I know very little, however is the blue mineral linarite?

I found it, on a hike, walked threw a area where they where digging a foundation, it was just laying there, on top of the dirt, I wasn't even out looking for minerals. There was a lot of sedimentary rock. Not around any refineries or anything, but I cant be totally sure if thats where the rock came from, I couldn't really inspect the job site and just be walking around it, although I looked around some and couldn't find another piece like it.
I also own a piece of what is called 'blue slag', but slag usually has bubbles in it, from gases being trapped during the melting, usually pretty easy to spot.
I also own a few pieces of azurite and in the green form malachite, so I am familiar with what it looks like. Known as copper carbonates
So like you said it might be azurite, but because it is so different looking I am not a hundred percent sure. There is still a chance it might be some sort of slag. It looks nice regardless.

Postpaleo, I live near Penn State, time for me to do some research. I also live near a place where there is a area with lots of geodes, I find one almost every time I go there, but have only ever found one real good one there, with amethyst.
For my next mineral, I found this one (actually several) in a slate bank along a road. The picture doesn't do it justice. It is white milky with a clear crystal, and inside the clear crystal is the black mineral and the other sides are striated. It has no particular cleavage, but it has a ton of faces. I am guessing it would be quartz (the white part) and the clear crystal has a very glistening surface and doesn't seem to be quartz, and the black mineral I could only guess, would be something like graphite or one of the black minerals that would form in a slate area.

Also I want to see other peoples minerals!!

Okay... this one is hard!! I want to reach into the picture and touch the thing to have a closer look. UGH!!

Slate is a low temperature metamorphic rock. The minerals that form are a function of the minerology of the original sediment. The parent rock for slate is typically some sort of mudstone or siltstone. The chunk in the picture looks a lot like a chunk of quartz to me. It is totally possible that there could be some larger clasts of material in a fine grain sedimentary rock like siltstone. If the source material for the parent rock were something like granite or gneiss, then there could be clasts of quartz in the resulting siltstone. That would make the black minerals likely pyroxine or amphibole. Those are the most common black minerals that would be found in a rock like granite. Do you follow? I am suggesting that the sediment that was deposited to form the siltstone that was then "changed" into a slate could have been something like granite or gneiss. This could result in a clast of quartz.... I really need to see that chunk to say much.

Yeah, I follow, just barely
I just think it is interesting to look at because of the black mineral inside. The outside part is almost defiantly quartz. It is hard for me to describe, but do you know when you look in a puddle of oil, how you see a rainbow of colors, the crystal clear part has that, you can see it a little in the photo, makes it nice to look at and interesting with the black part inside.

What caves have you explored, any I would have heard off?

Todd

Hey,
I seem to have this one mineral I cant identify, I was thinking about just throwing it in the garden out back








Just kidding, I got this pic off the internet

A lot of limestone in that general area and has "pockets" were strange things form. Where you found that last picture, and not the ripped from the net one. Cherts form in it and the sources for that type of jasper would be north and I think a bit east. As I recall there should be a state forest very near it. I didn't find the sources, but did give it a go. A very dull reddish or orange to it, where as the eastern type has a waxy luster to it. The exception to your area jasper would be if has been in a fire, then it gets tough to tell. Very widely distributed by Native Americans. But held mostly to the eastern, north eastern areas, upstate New York was the furthest I have found it, both types.

I don't think the last glacier got down that far, but maybe wrong. Find some really strange things in glacier till.

Ouch, lol, when I hear the term rocks, I kinda cringe. I want to tack the right word in front of it to describe the size range to it. Anal retentive was very useful in the shovel bum field.