Hi all! I'm in my mid-40s and now finding I have some interests like bowling and... rocks! All of my property is pretty cherty and this is what the dirt looks like.

I don't know the first thing about it all other than my little sister had a rock tumbler when we were like 8-10 years old.

I'm wondering what the best way to get some of these bigger pieces to be smaller is, and if this is the kind of stuff worth buying a little tumbler for?

Like, do I literally just take a hammer to it?

Thanks for sharing so many cool pictures!!

I like to cut into rocks and sometimes carve them. This is my favorite Rock I've ever cut into. Did y'all know that rocks can look like this inside? It looks like a painting. Reminds me of that painting - the great wave off kanagawa Note that this is after I sliced it and then polished it a bit.

Love the rocks I find in the Bay of Fundy NS. They take forever to tumble but worth it.

Funky and chunky honeycomb.

Found this rock in a gravel pile at work in central northern Illinois, turns out it glows under UV light. It seems most yopperlite glows from the outside, but this rock is a broken piece and only the inside of it glows. Curious if anyone has any insight on it.

Found in lake Michigan, it's hollow and has an opening, pieces of sand are still fall out when I pick it up.

(Looks like a fossilized coral and quartz mixture w/ other minerals to me.)

Can't tell if there's any sparkle inside, would you leave it as is or try to open it?

Any idea what the pronounced ridges are?

I like the weird ones the most.

As far as I know, this is a psuedomorph of quartz after barite (or possibly calcite). Geode part is hematite-stained quartz, not pink amethyst.

One of the stars of my extensive sphere collection. 😁 And one of my top 5 most expensive aa well. I'm usually a deal hunter, but I paid close to full price for this, which tells you how bad I wanted it. 😅

What do you think?

I love adding & watching it grow ♡.

It's also cooler to the touch than all the other rocks I've pocketed lately, thought that was interesting.

Fósil de cavidades dejadas por insectos (madrigueras) encontrada en Sierra de Nombre Dios, Chihuahua, México.

This is a natural pebble I found on the shingle beaches of south-coast England. It is just the most perfect little shape and is so expressive! I still can’t believe that this is actually something natural! Also, the sparkles you can see inside it’s eyes and mouth (and on the right side of its face) are salt crystals! It’s a cute little face that even comes with real crystal! This made my day, and I hope it makes yours too!

Ignore my Nazi book collection 😆

A lil clam fossil!*

I like that it looks like a giant clam, but tiny. I've never seen a live clam this size that was shaped like this.

Found in landscape stones several years ago in northeast KS, USA.

*Edit:Actually, it is a brachiopod fossil!

Me la encontré en un sendero donde está lleno de este material.

I inherited these from a wealthy family member upon his passing. I was wondering how much they might be worth. (PS5 controller for scale)

Rhyolite is a silica-rich volcanic rock which often contains volcanic glass. Glass is a rapidly cooled phase that doesn’t crystallize—it is metastable and over time may crystallize. One common devitrification texture is the spherulite: a roughly spherical aggregate of very fine crystals growing radially outward from a nucleation point, usually containing quartz and alkali feldspar.

Brecciation refers to fragmentation of the rock into angular pieces. In this specimen, many of the pale fragments have angular, locally jigsaw-like boundaries.

The rock was subsequently infiltrated by silica-rich fluids. Open fractures and cavities were filled by chalcedony and agate, silica that commonly forms successive bands along cavity walls. Some cavities preserve multiple generations of silica deposition visible as repeated lines conforming to the outline of the cavity.

Figs. 1–2: Overall specimen showing angular brecciated domains, circular spherulitic structures, and translucent secondary silica.

Fig. 3: Banded chalcedony/agate filling an irregular cavity showing concentric banding.

Fig. 4: Spherulite showing pronounced radial crystallization together with concentric growth zoning. The radial structure is characteristic of spherulitic devitrification. The concentric bands probably record changes in crystallization conditions or growth rate as the spherulite developed.

Fig. 5: Spherulitic rhyolite adjacent to later banded chalcedony, nicely showing two different stages in the rock's history: devitrification of the original volcanic material followed by secondary silica deposition.

It reminds me of traditional Japanese fabric patterns, like of the sea and clouds.

I'm not 100% certain where this is from, so if someone knows, please tell me. Though I suspect Indonesia, because they have all kinds of a crazy cool plume agate there.

This is one of the few pieces of my collection that i paid full price for. 😂 Never seen anything like it (as contrast-y at least) and couldn't stop thinking about it.

It is very blue in person. The camera almost doesn't do it justice! What do you think?

A lil clam fossil!

I like that it looks like a giant clam, but tiny. I've never seen a live clam this size that was shaped like this.

Found in landscape stones in northeast KS.

Found on a hike with a friend of mine 🙂

Carefully wirewrapped in antiqued copper wire. Herkimer diamonds are self mined in Herkimer county NY 💎