Cool Rocks

Don't remember where I found it but it's cool!

I hope this isn't cheating... even though I made the rules. I definitely cheated by ordering this in to test in my endless experiments with earth pigments — thus why it's in my mortar.

But it's a nice pic, right?

It sheds green sparkles every time I touch it. Mica mines operate near here, which makes me think this is a chunk. Very shiny.

What could it be? A few other gem species are forming what I think are hydrates. They've been in a room temp, somewhat humid environment and are growing yellow crystal material.

Found it on the coast of France during a vacation a while back.

Not sure what type, but it took a while to get all of the clay out of it...

A friend and avid rock hound sent this for my natural pigment experiments.

Now to figure out how to grind it down, it's harder than I thought.

Bonus black light pic:

Magnified view

Not sure if rules allow for painted rocks but this one from my kid is the coolest rock ever!

And another random stone with lots of strange eyes and mouths

Now I just need to find an Eevee....

(side view to show off his layers)

He looks terrified of something... What does a rock have to be scared of?

From the other side:

A subset of rocks we found at our beach.

Edit: GiantChickDicks suggested to check under UV light. Funny you should presume I have such a device:

The faint highlights are a camera artifact and look much dimmer to the eye.

Wonder what it was....

In fact I get a lot of my rocks from rooftops. Not all by any means but a lot. It's about 20mm wide or 7/8".

Picked this bad boy up from a local oddities expo. Aurora quartz is natural quartz that has been bonded with metal vapor in a vacuum chamber to give it an iridescent shine

Asking folks so I can clarify the rules.

Rocks and minerals are pretty fascinating, quite a few discussions pop up in the comments about geology — We could all learn together with some science peppered in.

At the same time, I really like the vibe of mostly sharing rocks, encouraging people to go rock hounding for the hell of it. ~And~ ~I~ ~already~ ~have~ ~three~ ~news~ ~coms.~

Alternatively, we could partner with or make a geology com for the science and news side of things, keeping this community focused on the rocks.

The questions:

• Should we include articles, discourage them, or have a rule against them?

• If we don't want articles, should we partner with or create a partner community for articles and science?

edit: I'll leave this up for about a day and amend the rules sometime over the weekend based on vibes and feelings, not going by votes or volume. I can always change things around again if we're not happy with the rules.

edit: Thanks everyone. I changed the sidebar text to encourage cool rock posting, with facts and articles in the body.

Feel free to keep discussing the cool rocks community if you have ideas.