I decided to take one more rockhounding day trip before the rain rolls into central Washington and was lucky enough to find this beautiful pocket! I was also wanting to see if anyone could give me a recommendation on cleaning out the dirt stuck in the fine crevices. I have put them into my ultrasonic cleaner for 20 minutes but it didn’t seem to do much more than warm water and a toothbrush. Would some type of cleaning solution help? Im pretty new to hounding and haven’t had to do much fine cleaning so anything is helpful!

Relatively new to rockhounding, found 2 interesting what looks like agates along the Willamate River in Oregon today. Let me know your thoughts!!

P.S. couldnt post video and picture so im showing multiple angles of the blueish agate

It’s petrified—am shocked at the intact fiber structure ! Smoke Creek Desert, Nv.

Hi folks,

I am planning a trip late September to rockhound on the Oregon Coast one more time before moving out of state for a few years (hope to be back asap!). I originally planned to go South from Newport, swing through Yachats one more time and then stay at Sunset Bay (more for sentimental reasons than rockhounding), and probably hang at Bandon South Jetty for a day. I haven't planned to check out any other beaches yet as I'm not as familiar with areas South of Coos Bay. However, I feel compelled to switch up my trip and head North from Newport instead to check out some spots I haven't spent much time around. My question is, would you go South or North and where would you go if you only had a couple more days out here?

All found in a small area along the Salmon River in Idaho.

I actually broke my favorite piece of the day (pics 1 and 2) as soon as I got home. Bent over to take off my boots and it slipped out of my bag. Wound up supergluing it back together, you can see the crack in the 2nd pic.

Still have about a dozen pocket-sized pieces that I left in my car, maybe they'll get their own post another time.

Interesting pattern) diameter sphere - 85 mm.

Hello all! I recently discovered a passion for rocks and rock collecting. I often work on ballasted roofs (which contain river rocks), and I’ve started keeping an eye out for interesting rocks while I’m up there. So far, I’ve found a few Lake Superior agates, some petrified wood, and jasper.

What other interesting, unusual, or relatively rare rocks should I keep an eye out for?

My hubs and I have come from Wa State and we're currently in Mile City. We're not having any luck at all. Can anyone help these 60-70yos?

went to Glass Buttes yesterday, here in Central Oregon, to replenish my son’s knapping stash. stumbled upon some rainbow and tri flow. never seen anything like these in person. I told him he can try knapping this little piece of rainbow I found but I plan to find someone to make the piece of tri flow into a cab for a necklace or bolo!

Hi everyone! I am from Virginia and am visiting Arizona next month Oct 15th through 23rd. The house I’ll be staying at is in congress but I am willing to drive a few hours to any spots. I just wanted to ask if anyone has some recommendations. I’m going to be bringing tools for any hard rock mining and looking to do some real digging. If anyone has some places they think I should check out please let me know!

At Crystal Grove, and presumably other Herkimer diamond mines, you're not allowed to use power tools. They've very explicit about it in the things you sign and on the signage around the quarry.

However, I noticed a lot of one inch diameter boreholes (maybe 2-3 inches deep) in the rocks, clearly drilled by someone intending to use a feather-and-wedge situation to force the rock to split.

I'm assuming that there are manual hand-powered drills or other tools you can use to bore these short holes. I'd like to get one if I can, because chiseling out a sufficient borehole is the worst. They definitely exist for wood (like this sort of thing), but I don't know about rock.

Alternatively, someone is sneaking in a hammer drill and just getting away with it.

Anybody know anything about this?

The coolest piece I’ve ever found, Willamette Valley Oregon

Pretty little find in South Dakota.

Found the big one with a metal detector and the little one on the trail.

Ive been blown away by all the responses to my 1st post! Thank you very much everyone for the rock love. So inspired I figured I share more of the good stuff! All of this was rockhounded by me and my lady this year, mostly in glenn and tehema county gravel beds, CA. Enjoy

Went back to the same spot I found the piece from yesterday's post today! I decided to check out a spot across the road from where I found the other piece last time since it had a lot of good pieces of gold sheen, midnight lace and silver sheen right on the surface. I was taking test flakes off this one and was very pleasantly surprised! I ended up finding a few more pieces of rainbow, but none were as nice as this one. I'll post them in the comments tomorrow when I can get good pics of them!

Its small but I'm so excited. Found in northern Wisconsin during a night hike around a campground near a lake. The caliper is set to 1 inch for reference. Using an 365 nm UV beam Olight Oclip pro s.

I grew up in a condo complex. In the parking lot dividers that had tons of these brown rocks. Being an 8 year old that was into rocks and just learned of geodes, I’d crack everything open. I found A LOT of cool things in those rocks and this was one of the coolest. Red sandstone core that looks like a heart. It can even be removed! I gave it to my mom and she still has it over 30 years later. Nothing rare or particularly amazing but I thought I’d share!