🔎 UNIDENTIFIED Help with Red Ochre

[WoodsDigger]

I find red rocks from time to time on a creek i fish or where two creeks merge. Can anyone tell me how to tell if its crumbled old brick or red ochre? One chunk does have a smooth flat spot. Found in northern ny.

 

[ToddsPoint]

That looks like ochre to me. The Indians ground it into powder and used it for a variety of things. You can make paint by mixing the powder with egg whites. If you use this paint on rocks, the eggs cause the ochre to bond with the rock and the paint stays on there for decades. Even centuries.
I find it occasionally on camp sites. You can also find it along the river near Wickliffe KY. An ancient paleo hematite/ochre quarry was found recently in WY. It’s called the Powars II site.

 

[WoodsDigger]

That looks like ochre to me. The Indians ground it into powder and used it for a variety of things. You can make paint by mixing the powder with egg whites. If you use this paint on rocks, the eggs cause the ochre to bond with the rock and the paint stays on there for decades. Even centuries.
I find it occasionally on camp sites. You can also find it along the river near Wickliffe KY. An ancient paleo hematite/ochre quarry was found recently in WY. It’s called the Powars II site.

Thanks Todd, my dock area on a trib of Lake Ontario is turning out to be an ancient campsite. I have found iroqoius shards, net sinkers of unknown age. Melted lead, big caliber musket balls and porcelain / china fragments. Plus I have a kettle hole pond i wanted to run buy you some time. Im trying to learn late paleo and up. We own a peice of land in the Adirondacks that has 15 beaver ponds and a glacial esker we call the hogsback dividing up the ponds. I saw the drone Pic of the depressions in the field you posted. Thanks your posts are informative and inspiring.