If you've ever walked along the picturesque beaches of Oregon, you might have heard of the elusive treasures known as beach agates. These mesmerizing gemstones, shaped and polished by the ceaseless motion of the ocean, are a collector's dream. If you're eager to uncover these hidden gems for yourself, here's a guide to help you embark on your beach agate hunting adventure:
Agates! One of the easiest and most common rocks on a rockhounds mind!
What is a "Rockhound", they are someone who looks for rocks everywhere they go like a bloodhound on the trail! You can find many cool rocks just about everywhere you go in the Pacific Northwest but one of the most prized is our amazing abundance of AGATES!
Late summer and early fall is the PERFECT time to try creek or river rockhounding if you have never tried before. This time of year, water runs lower, exposing more of the creek or river bed and lowering water levels so you can see the treasures below!
Almost any rocky bottomed creek to river can provide unlimited treasure hunting if you know what to look for and how to look for it.
Ever wonder what exactly jasper is? Wonder how it forms? I get asked often and the answer is both simple and complex.
The simple answer: Jasper is a opaque silica based material with conchoidal or "shell-like" fracture (like how glass breaks) and a hardness of 7, which cannot be scratched with a steel pocket knife, just like quartz, why? it's got a high quartz content, the crystals in the material are crypto or microcrystalline quartz, so you can't see them but they are there and that is what gives the jasper it's strength.
The complex answer: jasper is NOT a scientific term. When labeling proper jaspers, scientists will label the specimen "cryptocrystalline quartz or microcrystalline quartz: variety jasper"