Bushlore Topics > Bushlore and Outdoor Skills
Finding "Flint"
PetrifiedWood:
In my immediate area it's all slate, shale and sandstone, but an hour's drive gets you to some places where smooth rounded stones that were once tumbled in water literally coat the ground, having been exposed by the soil eroding away. Most of them work for sparks once you bust them open to get at an edge. But they are mostly fist sized and smaller, and while they work for sparks they don't seem to have conchoidal fracture so they aren't useful for knapping material.
Half Axe:
PW, I'm going to have to lay my hands on a geologic map of Utah and see if I can't find you a better collecting area. One of my consultants may be able to loan me a map. I'll work on that as part of the "where to go" suggestions.
PetrifiedWood:
I'm going to have to post a pic of some rocks I collected at a specific area and if I can find the coordinates I'll post those as well. I've been calling them chalcedony but I might be misidentifying them.
Might be a good thing to post that kind of info in the Utah local board. ;)
PetrifiedWood:
These work very well for striking sparks, but do not flake easily, however I have found a piece at the deposit that appears to have been pressure flaked. As you can see, these were broken up long ago, they have some lichen growing on them in places.
This deposit was about a 2 hour drive from me. It was a slight depression in the land where they were strewn about everywhere in an area about the size of 2 football fields. A professor at the local college who also works at the prehistoric museum in the paleontology dept. (and from who I took a gem cutting class a few years ago) directed me there. I think I asked him where I could find "chert" at the time.
Half Axe:
They look like chalcedony from this angle, PW. I'm sure they are.
In these photos, the red rock is jasper from the northwest end of Glendo Reservoir and the other is a piece of chalcedony I collected locally. Note how the jasper has a dull appearance and the chalcedony is waxy-looking.
I wanted to use better examples in the photos, but my rock specimens are buried under a couple of feet of snow. >:(
I'm going to post something of interest in the Utah board in a little bit for you to check out.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version