fossilized clamshells with calcite crystals

[lamplighter36]

Found these last fall in Florida. Active quarry, requires fee. Under UV light crystals glow green, and hold light for a second after shutoff.

Fun to find also, assuming you enjoy working a hammer and chisel all day.

first post on this forum, thanks for looking.

-thomas

 

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[pokerbear]

Welcome to the forum, very cool, never seen one of those, thanks for sharing

Regards,
Pokerbear

 

[fossis]

Welcome, Those are beautiful, I have one also, Fossis.............

 

[Daisy]

Great find! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Eu_citzen]

Looks great! A nice specimen.

 

[lamplighter36]

thank you all for the replies. these are sooooo cool and so much fun to find. i guess florida is the only place to find them...so far.

any good geode folks on here....a buddy gave me a small geode with flat mica-ish things in it- from africa!

ill post a pic if anyones interested.
thanks,
thomas

 

[Daisy]

Please do!
LOVE geodes but have yet to fiind my first one. That was really nice of your friend!

 

[Eu_citzen]

In this specimen is that an Ammonite? It looks like it...

Yes show those Geodes, I would love to see them.

 

[lamplighter36]

The crystals in the pictures posted before are calcite. they are honey colored. the second pic is a little darker cause i tweaked it in .ppt to show off the detail.

this pic is the geode i promised ya'll. It was found by my buddy while deployed to Djbouti, Africa. Lake Asaal to be exact...like, the hottest place on earth. sulfur/salt lake with fumeroles (sp). he just picked it up and gave it to me.

not sure what the flatter pieces are in the top of the pic. nice little geode, i think.
-thomas

 

[lamplighter36]

EU_CITZEN,

sorry, to better answer your question. in the first 2 pics posted, i think the specimen contains maybe a small ammonite- almost attached, on the left. or at least it looks ammonite-ish. the larger shell (almost not recognized, on a count of the large crystal inside) is a clam shell. dont recall the latin name, but it's basically a large basic clam shell- only the shell is nearly spent, as it leached itself away for the formation of calcite inside.

the smaller shell, possible ammonite (if the epochs match up) probably has tiny crystals inside too. these are about 3-5million yo.

check out:
http://www.gamineral.org/ft_drum-pics.html

regards, thomas

 

[diamondjim]

clam shell pics calcite type often referred to as dog tooth spar.

Calcite cool, always glows under UV...but phosporescent (glow after light off) not so common.

Geode looks like quartz on calcedony with barite filling. Bubbly shape is calcedony, with many small quartz xtals on top (makes it sparkly), the flat stuff is xtals of barite.

Tell your buddy to send more!

 

[lamplighter36]

ha ha!

my buddy just got back....and i dont think im going out on a limb by saying he will never go back to djbouti under his own will. if the blackflies dont eat you to death, the blaring heat and disease will. also has a lot of shady characters in those parts. (got good geodes though)

thanks for the info on barite.
-thomas

 

[Eu_citzen]

Yeah it's nice, quartz is pretty common in geodes I think, I've got no idear on the brown stuff but I guess diamondjim knows what he's talking about.

 

[diamondjim]

I do ALOT of geode hunting and the list of possible minerals is huge...the main thing to remember though is quartz is massively harder than just about everything on that list. So naturally it endures much better, making it appear more common than it really is. AND most of the more attractive types are quartz as well, so they are more frequently collected and displayed. I have a couple of sites in Kentucky and Tenneesee that have sky blue Celestite geodes...but you have to get to them before the weather destroys them...even then if improperly handled will disentegrate into a blue powder (i.e., you don't use the big sledge on them )

I strongly recommend anyone interested in minerals/xtals put away the rock picture books and get a recent copy of "Dana's manual of mineralogy."

 

[Nugget Hog]

Please tell me about the quarry you found these at.

 

[lamplighter36]

Nugget Hog,

I think you want info on the clams? (i posted a standard geode from africa, but i think you were refering to the clams)

i will repost the link to a website that has pics and info on this quarry. it's a family owned, and run operation that also provides camping and fishing. hunting is mainly limited to talings piles, but still fun.


http://www.gamineral.org/ft_drum-pics.html

or

fortdrumcrystalmine@yahoo.com

good luck!