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Found Blue Rock at the Lake

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  • Found Blue Rock at the Lake

    We took the daughter and grandkids to the lake for 4 hours today for a relaxing day. Beached the pontoon on a couple of shore areas just to check the shoreline for rocks. On one that we came to we found hundreds of broken geodes on the beach and lots of foot prints. Seems someone was smashing them to check the insides. At one of these sites I found a blue rock that looked like it may have come from one of the geodes. I picked up the biggest piece and brought it home and was curious as to what it actually was - so here it is

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    It isn't as grainy as most of the material (Quartz or calcite) that I see the broken geodes. But there was lots of blue material lying around where I found this and there had been outer casing from geodes lying around. Anyone got any ideas?? Appreciate your help ...Chuck
    Pickett/Fentress County, Tn - Any day on this side of the grass is a good day. -Chuck-

  • #2
    Maybe topaz. Can you tell the hardness

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    • Scorpion68
      Scorpion68 commented
      Editing a comment
      How would you determine the hardness. There ain't much of it and i'd hate to waste any of it??

  • #3
    Yep I face that problem too. Anyway, see if it scratches a steel pipe. Ya don't have to press down hard. It goes fingernail, penny pre 1982, then a piece of steel. If it scratches steel then good chance blue topaz. It has hardness 8. Of course if you want. Anyway I am thinking topaz cause of your area. Nice find.

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    • #4
      If you’re finding blue translucent or semi-transparent material in close association with geodes (especially if it’s in flakes), then it’s most likely to be chalcedony… and that’s what the “crinkly” surface appearance of the piece in your first picture suggests. I would expect rough topaz to have at least some semblance of cleavage planes with an angular appearance.

      Geodes most usually have a chalcedony shell and sometimes a chalcedony lining too. Blue is a common colouration.

      As civ5king says, hardness is one of the important characteristics for mineral identification and is measured on the Mohs scale, where talc is assigned a hardness of 1 and diamond a hardness of 10. The numbers are arbitrary and hardness is determined by physically checking what will scratch what.

      Chalcedony has a hardness between 6-7 and, as civ5king says, topaz is significantly harder at 8 on the Mohs scale. Both will easily scratch the type of steel used for inexpensive pocket knives (hardness of 5.5) but only topaz would readily scratch a quality tool made from hardened steel such as a file or a chisel (hardness of 6.5) or high quality glass (also 6.5, but note that ordinary window glass is usually softer at around 5.5)
      I keep six honest serving-men (they taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.

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      • #5
        Well I gave it a try and it scratches my Kershaw knife blade and a Bastard file I have. The file is probably made in China so I don't give it a "high quality steel" rating. Still - I'm gonna check it against a steel pipe I have in the barn and I'll let ya know. Thanks ya'll for checking in and commenting. Painshill - as usual, your very informative. ..Chuck
        Pickett/Fentress County, Tn - Any day on this side of the grass is a good day. -Chuck-

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        • #6
          Pretty stone. Chuck, I sent you a private message
          South Dakota

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          • #7
            If it has bubbles it's glass slag. I find some blue slag in West Tn but it's opaque. Just throwing that out there.

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            • #8
              Beautiful .
              Painshill , what a test

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              • #9
                A shame to just smash geodes & then discard them because the colir's not up to snuff. Just saying...
                Child of the tides

                Comment


                • Scorpion68
                  Scorpion68 commented
                  Editing a comment
                  Agree Deb but they're looking for the exotic colors Reds,pinks, yellow, Blue, greens etc for resale as jewelry. They don't want the ordinary clear quartz.
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