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Carolina Rhyolite
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gregszybala wrote:
Butch, Nice points and thanks for the examples. Rhyolite ever come in a reddish brown? Found a point here in Northwest Indiana and have wondered about the material. Know it is not chert, but what it is?
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gregszybala wrote:
So obviously not even close Butch, but does look like yours Hoss. Traveled quite a bit to get here.
Thanks gents.
My apologies to you Butch those are some fine looking Rhyolite points there. And that is what this thhread started with. Thanks for sharing.
TN formerly CT Visit our store http://stores.arrowheads.com/store.p...m-Trading-Post
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Butch Wilson wrote:
nice points Greg and Hoss, kinda grainy. Hoss, isn't felsite the same make up as Rhyolite just larger grain structure?
Butch
TN formerly CT Visit our store http://stores.arrowheads.com/store.p...m-Trading-Post
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CliffJ wrote:
A few quartz pieces in here, but mostly rhyolite. All are personal finds from NC from the good old days.
Butch
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Thanks for starting this thread, Butch.
Identifying the Rhyolites of NC can get real complicated real quick. There are hundreds of different
varieties of Rhyolite in our state, but the term Rhyolite is also used as a generic catch-all term
for a lot of the meta-sedimentary materials we also have. Sometimes you can't really say for sure
what the material is without seeing it in-situ, or the outcrop it came from.
For instance that beauty of a fluted point, right center, in Cliffs picture of points found from
the good ol'days. (Amen to that, Cliff!) Might be Rhyolite or a Felsite?
The dark point on the left of the points you pictured I would call a Rowan, but the lack of
patina is curious. It must have an extremely high silica content.
The pink point Greg posted found in northwest Indiana(?) might be a Felsite, but due to the lack of
volcanic materials available in that region, I would guess a sedimentary silicated sandstone,
or even a quartzite, first.
Nice link to the fieldtrip to Morrow Mountain with Dr. Daniel. As mentioned, Morrow Mountain is
known for its flow-banded rhyolite while the porphyritic stuff, what several of the points you
pictured are made of, can be found one mountain over and several other places in the Slate belt.
The most recent and thorough work on trying to identify the different types of Rhyolite in NC was
published by the Research Laboratories of Archaeology at Chapel Hill in conjunction with work being
done by the archaeology team at Fort Bragg. It is called "Stone Quarries and Sourcing in the
Carolina Slate Belt", 2006.
This is a good topic on an interesting lithic, but can get complicated and, as I said, sometimes
questions can only be answered by seeing where the rock came from in the ground and its surroundings.
Real Fun Stuff!
Joe
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