Landscape gravel agates

[EricTheCat]

I went to the local farm store a few blocks from here to get some more onions to plant today. Sometimes when I am there I will ask if I can thrown in a few extra $ to look for rocks in their gravel pile. So far they have never turned me down. Even though I probably pay more than you would to buy agates at a store I never mind paying for the privilege of finding my own. So I did so today and here is what I found.

Farm store agates from today:

And here they are with my favorite agates from the same pile from prior years (one I took a chance on, had to cut open to know what was there):


Then I went home and started unloading some river rock that I am putting around the border of my sunflower garden (yes, yes, ulterior motive ) and look at the agate that was waiting to be found there!




Never underestimate landscape gravel.

Happy hunting.
Eric

 

[kingskid1611]

I have the privilege of working with a stone and rock sales center. I can go thru lots of their rocks and find cool ones. I wish I had an eye for rocks but alas I don't. These post make me want to look more and learn more.

 

[BurntBear]

Wow. Simply stunning! I'd like to get ahold of a few of those. -Luke

 

[bowfin]

Nice finds. I search landscaping rocks but I don't think I've found any agates yet. I mostly find unakite and coral fossils like Petoskey stones. I've bought bags with landscaping rocks with success for interesting rocks and fossils. It is cheaper than to travel to my favorite spots which are about two hours drive away. You can then search them at your leisure. The problem is I get stuck with a lot of rocks that I don't want.

 

[EricTheCat]

Bowfin, cool. I also find the occasional fossil in the landscape gravel and also lots of pieces of what I would guess is agatized coral - agate-like material with tiny (about 1mm) perfectly round inclusions all over. One I found still has a pretty nicely preserved cross-section of coral and so that's where I made the jump from the round inclusions to coral. Finding a use for the extra rock can be tricky. Maybe put in a rock garden and use the gravel to fill around the nicer rocks?

By the way, the river rock turned up another find (the pic does not do this one justice, lighting is hard sometimes with shiny surfaces):





Off topic: Also I have some good finds to post from last weekend, but they didn't come from my landscape rock so I am afraid this forum may have to put up with yet another agate thread by me when I get to it. haha

 

[DDancer]

No worries. I often pick around landscape gravels when I'm traveling as something to do and have recovered a lot of agates, jaspers and various fossils from them.

 

[bowfin]

Congrats on another find! I like hearing about what people find in landscaping gravels. I found a neat rock once that had a lot of banding like an agate but it was gray and black and not at all see through. Just recently moved and have no idea where it is to take a picture. Was with some bigger sized stones I bought from Home Depot. It looks similar to the top of the stone in this picture so maybe it is an agate or jasper.



Yeah maybe I could use some of it for gardens. I'm currently renting though and would quickly run out of space I could use it on. Have the leftover rock stored in buckets and some at my parents house. Are gravel roads near where I live but I'm pretty sure they all use limestone.

 

[EricTheCat]

Yeah it's definitely interesting to see what can be found in random rock. Many of my earlier agate finds were from landscape gravel. When I bought my house there was a bunch of small (about 1 inch) mixed gravel strewn across part of the yard. Though I always liked finding nice rocks and agates my obsession with finding agates started after noticing many good agates mixed in with that gravel. I would find them when I was gardening or working on the yard. Some really nice ones. Though my yard is pretty well searched at this point I still chance across the occasional agate. Also the yard is littered with fossils which is pretty cool. Will probably never not be able to find fossils in this yard.

I finally got around to taking pics of that coral piece from the river rock.