Radical Rocks

                                   What Is Lapidary Art?                                                                       Lapidary Art   Items on Display in a Lapidary Museum In simple terms, lapidary is an art that requires working with stones. It is the cutting and polishing of stones to create beautiful ornaments. The roots of lapidary art can be traced back to prehistoric times, since as early as human beings started fashioning tools and weapons out of stones. Soon, people started using the same techniques to create items for person...

California Rocks gems and minerals There are so many great rocks gems and minerals and many areas to collect rocks, gems, and minerals in California that we could probably write a book on it. Instead of writing a book we will cover some of the main rocks, gems and minerals with some details to get you started, and we will have links to references and guidebooks as well as all our links below. If you want to collect in the winter there is the beaches and deserts, you want to collect in the dead of summer, California has the mountains and the beaches, you can’t lose. The history of rocks gems and minerals goes back to the Native Americans, that dug up and used many of California’s beautiful, gemstones. Then in 1849 the gold miners came looking for gold and many other finds of gems and minerals continued for over a hundred years, with a few small discovery’s the last few years interesting rocks and some agates. Please remember to check status of areas and rules before collection on...

Biggs Jasper Biggs Jasper is a rustic looking gemstone that displays several shades of browns from light to dark almost black, other colors are also found, more on that to follow. Biggs Jasper is called a “Picture Jasper” because of layered patterns, sometimes called shell patterns with variations within the patterns. At the end of the article there are links to publications and rockhounding guides. ( Credit and Thanks to” Molly Stevens Wahr,s” Face book post on our Radical Rocks Facebook Group and her Biggs jasper Cabochons displaying beautiful seins ) Discovery the Biggs jasper was discovered about 1960 near the Biggs Junction, in Oregon. The first samples were collected from the creek near Biggs junction. Sometime later between 1964 & 1966 road cuts were made for Route 97 and interstate 84 due in part to a flood were more deposits were located starting a small supply flow of Biggs Jasper to market by the roadcrews & other collectors that were selling to rock sho...

Jaspers with Orbs How to Guide I don’t know anyone who doesn’t enjoy looking at the amazing orb jaspers, the patterns of orbs, with the shapes of oval, round, egg as found in the “porcelain jaspers” are rare and favorites of collectors. Yet there is mystery on how these orb type jaspers were formed. There is a wonderful book by Marco Campo-Venuti, Genesis and Classification of Agates and Jaspers; a New Theory (Tipografia Luciani, Rome,2012) That the author presents a in depth discussion of jaspers and the major types, classified into four groups: Ocean Jaspers, Volcanic Jaspers, Jaspers Paedomorphic on Fossils, and Chemicals Jaspers. Orb Brecciated and Jasper-Agates. History  The name Jasper means "spotted or speckled stone" coming from Hebrew and likely Greek definition and possible even Persian. In Israel the first stone on the High Priest's breastplate, was a red jasper, whilst  Tarshish , the tenth stone, this dates to 1300 BCE. We know that Jasper occur in...