Odd Shapes - what are they?
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Charl
Silver Member
We only have one deposit of jasper in RI. It's yellow and golden brown and visually indistinguishable from Pa jasper of the same shades. The cobble I showed was dropped out of the glacier and was part of a boulder train of cobbles originating in the Cumberland region of RI, mostly Cumberlandite, which identifies the boulder train, but also the less common chunk of jasper now and then. So, not much experience finding raw jasper anywhere in RI in our glacial outwash, but the chunk I showed is most certainly Limerock jasper from Cumberland, since it is a glacial outwash deposit. I could always use more experience, scepter, but I have no problem identifying this chunk of jasper lying on a beach, so I don't really know what you are talking about. Are you saying it isn't jasper, because if so, you are mistaken. If it isn't a perfect cube, thanks for pointing out the obvious(?), my point was it is not the shape you claim it should be if Mother Nature alone was responsible. Are the other examples you show, such as the rectangular example in your first photo a cube? Is you so-named casket example a cube? You claimed they would weather into a round shape, so I showed you an example that did not weather into that shape at all. I never said my example was a cube, nor was I specifically comparing my example with your cube, that is a claim that you just assumed off the top of your head, for no apparent reason whatsoever, you said it, not me. After all, you did show other examples did you not, so your clever medical diagnosis does not apply. Do not pass go and return to medical school. But, guess what, any rock, including jasper can end up in any shape by nature alone. Your medical diagnosis of dyslexia is way off base and mistaken. I was simply showing you a jasper cobble, found on a beach, that was far from round. Never said it was a perfect cube. So, thanks for your help, but you really need help far more then I do, since you lack any and all ability to distinguish a rock from an artifact. I wish you the best of luck in overcoming that regrettable handicap! It can be overcome with experience. Where your knowledge is lacking is your inability to distinguish between jasper that has not been worked by man and jasper that has been reduced by knapping. All of the pieces you show are natural and give no real indication that they were shaped by man. As noted, I can never reach the point where no further experience is needed, but I am certainly correct in showing you a raw chunk of glacially deposited and water worn jasper. I had absolutely no problem identifying it at all. Regardless of the cleavage, hardness, and breakage patterns, you lack knowledge of how a mineral that was buried in a formation many thousands of feet thick for tens of millions of years, assume the shapes, by nature alone, that they can assume, strictly at the hands of Mother Nature. You show me anywhere on your jasper cobbles where human alteration is very clear and apparent. If you want to know how other chunks of raw jasper appear after transport by glacier and X amount of time in a tidal zone, you can refer to the example I showed you. Still has quite a bit of surface where the cortex is still present. And again, if you are saying I have misidentified a rock that is not jasper, your wrong. Of course it's jasper. I do not need any help identifying beach agates and Jasper's at all. Might be a lot rarer then where you are, because we only have one area where jasper and agate outcrop, utilized from Paleo-Woodland times. But I have no problem identifying jasper and agate when I find it, so your concern is misplaced. Help someone else, please. A close friend of mine has many jasper pebbles and cobbles from our beaches; I only collect real nice examples, but his examples are water worn into all kinds of shapes, square, round, oblong, you can pretty much name it. Not a one got that way through the hands of man.
So, thanks for showing that nice cube again. It is a cube, that's for sure. Now you show me the evidence of work by man on that stone. And demonstrate the signs of human alteration on the other examples you show as well. Point out where you see all the tool marks, etc. Don't use the argument that they can only break in a certain way; show me the proof if you can that those are shaped by man. And if you say, well those clues are all washed away by the water, well, isn't that convenient......
This is Limerock jasper. I don't need any help at all identifying jasper on the beach.....
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unclemac
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contact one of these folks at the Burke. I have actually used Liz Nesbitt a few times in the past...very nice person and all of them are happy to help. I think they see it as their mission to not get stumped. If they can't help you themselves, they pass it on to someone who can.
Staff Directory - Burke Museum
Staff Directory - Burke Museum
jackflashz
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I'd use caution in contacting anyone in Washington State. Among others, I have also contacted Liz in the past and was helpful and nice. Emailed her a couple years later and either she wasn't there or she forewarded my email to someone else whom wanted me to bring in what I found. When I didn't agree to do that, I received a 5 page email listing all the state and federal laws I was breaking, which I did not violate. They are all nice until they don't get what they want.
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scepter1
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Charl, you are making it much more complicated than it should be. There's a saying you've probably heard of "What goes around, comes around" You made fun of my honest post, so I made fun of yours.
Yes, you obviously posted a jasper. Sorry for not being impressed. Jasper is very common here, and unless it's especially high quality or unusual, experienced rockhounds often don't bother picking it up after the first couple hundred pounds.
Seen thousands of jaspers with a flat side, probably a thousand with 2 flat sides, a few hundred with 3 flat sides. A few questionable ones with 4 flat sides. 5 and 6 flat sides haven't been seen except for special ones I've found at this site. There are enough stones and enough weird things that nature does that I don't doubt that there are some actual nature made agate and jasper cubes out there. But finding a larger sized agate or jasper cube, especially on a pea-sized gravel beach, would be a rare find. Find two in the exact same spot, of different materials, and the odds sky rocket. And add in the odds of them only being found in 2 locations, and have them mixed in with rarely found arrowheads. Now multiply all those odds by 8 more examples !
As far as jasper goes, these are the last couple of jasper-agate combos that I found/saved within walking distance of the house:
The first couple of photos below are ones i posted in 2013. This lithic shows no human alteration (no, I won't say why not). The forum at that time called it a perform. It was found at the same exact location, and you can see has some squared off shapes as well.
Couple more below. Not cubed, but flat sides from the same location. Those are grooves on that first photo:
Yes, you obviously posted a jasper. Sorry for not being impressed. Jasper is very common here, and unless it's especially high quality or unusual, experienced rockhounds often don't bother picking it up after the first couple hundred pounds.
Seen thousands of jaspers with a flat side, probably a thousand with 2 flat sides, a few hundred with 3 flat sides. A few questionable ones with 4 flat sides. 5 and 6 flat sides haven't been seen except for special ones I've found at this site. There are enough stones and enough weird things that nature does that I don't doubt that there are some actual nature made agate and jasper cubes out there. But finding a larger sized agate or jasper cube, especially on a pea-sized gravel beach, would be a rare find. Find two in the exact same spot, of different materials, and the odds sky rocket. And add in the odds of them only being found in 2 locations, and have them mixed in with rarely found arrowheads. Now multiply all those odds by 8 more examples !
As far as jasper goes, these are the last couple of jasper-agate combos that I found/saved within walking distance of the house:
The first couple of photos below are ones i posted in 2013. This lithic shows no human alteration (no, I won't say why not). The forum at that time called it a perform. It was found at the same exact location, and you can see has some squared off shapes as well.
Couple more below. Not cubed, but flat sides from the same location. Those are grooves on that first photo:
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unclemac
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I was down past Warrenton in about Gearhart or so and there in a roadside gravel/garden bark lot were two huge, car size boulders of yellow jasper with red and green and brown and quartz veins....I had to stop and gawk.
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scepter1
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unclemac, I was just reading the reply to your post by jackflashz. Sad to say, my experience with the Burke has almost identical to his. Which is why I posted here rather than contact them. Really sad, as I used to work in the u-district, and spent many lunch hours in the Burke, and had a lot of pleasant casual conversations about the exhibits. Seems to be a pattern though. I used to belong to a Seattle rockhound club that had some elderly rockhounds that had collected some world class specimens back when collecting was REALLY good. A bunch clubs got together and donated some of their best Washington specimens the Burke. Apparently the museum was really nice, then took the specimens and sold them / traded them instead of displayimg them - then got nasty about it when they were confronted.
My first artifact contact with the Burke was with a woman (don't recall if her name was Liz) about the first points I found at this very same location. Nice enough, but couldn't tell me anything about them other than they had probably been reworked from some other type. A year later, I was having a foundation dug out in order to build a waterfront home (near this same location) and my contractor found 2 of these stones (below). He was afraid to contact anyone about them, so I foolishly said I'd find out what they are. I used the same email address as before. "They" wanted me to bring them in, but when I said I didn't have the time to do that, they emailed me a whole bunch of RCW laws and implied I was doing something wrong. True you can't purposely dig here for artifacts, but this was a contractor digging out my foundation.
Charl
Silver Member
Scepter1 wrote:
"Charl, you are making it much more complicated than it should be. There's a saying you've probably heard of "What goes around, comes around" You made fun of my honest post, so I made fun of yours."
It's only a difference of opinion. But, you need to get your facts straight and not twist facts to suit yourself. My first two replies to this thread contained nothing that could possibly be considered "made fun of an honest post". That is sheer BS on your part, scepter1. I simply left a different opinion from your own. You then, and of your own free will, decided to state maybe I was dyslexic. You made the decision to go personal with an insult. Of your own free will and for YOUR OWN reasons, having nothing to do with anything I said. So, who are you kidding with the above observation?? Again, just a simple difference of opinion. No need for you to twist the facts, and your above quote stands the facts on their head.. Plain and simple.
"Charl, you are making it much more complicated than it should be. There's a saying you've probably heard of "What goes around, comes around" You made fun of my honest post, so I made fun of yours."
It's only a difference of opinion. But, you need to get your facts straight and not twist facts to suit yourself. My first two replies to this thread contained nothing that could possibly be considered "made fun of an honest post". That is sheer BS on your part, scepter1. I simply left a different opinion from your own. You then, and of your own free will, decided to state maybe I was dyslexic. You made the decision to go personal with an insult. Of your own free will and for YOUR OWN reasons, having nothing to do with anything I said. So, who are you kidding with the above observation?? Again, just a simple difference of opinion. No need for you to twist the facts, and your above quote stands the facts on their head.. Plain and simple.
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unclemac
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i have had the same talk from the Burke but since nothing i do is illegal I don't fret about it. I understand all about the issues that they have to face with diggers and hobbyists and shudder to think what would have happened to Ozette or Port Angeles if those sites were a free for all. They probably feel some sort of obligation to warn folks about artifact hunting as so much of WA is Federal or State land (not like NV with all that BLM however!). But private land is private land and picking up stones on a beach is still not a hard time offence. Liz is a geologist and not associated with artifacts, she is a good source to say "natural" or "man made"...if she says man made you can leave it at that and pursue it no further. She may have a good explanation for the shapes and I would be interested in that.
unclemac
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