Best rocks & minerals books according to redditors
We found 52 Reddit comments discussing the best rocks & minerals books. We ranked the 25 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 52 Reddit comments discussing the best rocks & minerals books. We ranked the 25 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
I would recommend looking into local rockhounding groups for your area. Here's is a book on California rockhounding. Here is also a list of musems and geological sites to visit in Cali. I'm not American but this is how my parents helped me when they found i was into the subject and now i'm doing it at University! :)
-1. Rock hammer
or a chisel type, if you want soft rocks and fossil beds.
-2. Hand lens
-3. Simon & Schuster's Guide to Rocks & Minerals Nuff said.
-4. Got some cash to burn? A handheld GPS is pretty nifty.
-5. Small bottle of hydrocloric acid. Can be handy for quick IDing of carbonates, but often not worth the hassle. Alternative: learn your mineralogy, bring a pocket knife.
-6. Sharpies, pens, masking tape, and a field book. Keep notes! Label rocks so you can track your finds.
-7. Camera!
-8. Sample bags - anything tough but soft should do. Pros often use canvas.
If you're feeling ambitious, raid your garden shed for anything good at moving earth. I've had a lot of luck recently with Estwing's prybars, chisels, and crack hammers with popping sediment beds out, but there's no need to go for name brands for these items. It's all about what you're going after...
Happy hunting!
I'm a professional mineralogist and I have that book at my desk, It's a pretty helpful guide sometimes. I also recommend Simon & Schuster's Guide to Rocks & Minerals and Introduction to the Rock-Forming Minerals
I've never been hunting up in the Boulder area, but the whole state of Colorado is very heavily mineralized (at least compared to the stuff available in the South!).
Here is GatorGirl's list of museums and places of interest.
Here is Boulder County's Mindat page, and the somewhat less comprehensive Peak to Peak page.
Unfortunately I don't have access to any of my books right now, but Voynick's Colorado Rockhounding, Kapelle's Rockhounding Colorado, and especially Mitchell's Gem Trails of Colorado all have much more detailed site reports. You might see if a local library has any or all of those to help you plan a trip.
Of course, if you're willing to drive a couple hours, a lot of other counties have plenty to offer as well!
So you live in Cali, eh? I worked south of V-town for a while and took a few trips through Napa. Nice area. Lots of grapes and expensive cars and shit. Take a trip over to the Petrified Forest and see if you can talk to the shop owners, I bet they'd know where you can go locally.
There's lots of stuff in Cali to find. You might have to take a few long drives for the good stuff, though. Get you a copy of the book "Gem Trails of California" and read up.
Apparently they revised Mitchell's original 1992 California Gem Trails book and split it into Northern Cali and Southern Cali.
I'd explore a few book stores to see if they have a copy of either, that way you can flip through the book to make sure you get the right one for your area.
How about gem and mineral specimens?
one more
> I had a friend get busted and had to go to court for this.
Your friend could have been claim jumping. Many mineral locals have claims on them, and they can be transient in nature. So even though it seems that it is on public lands, and is ok, someone could have come along and filed a claim over that particular area.
In defense of the claim holder, it takes a lot of expense, time, and energy to dig a hole in the ground. And the claim holder needs to see a return on that money. In defense of the collector, some claim holders should not be filing claims on things that they should not, such as designated public collecting areas. There is one such jerk in my area that may want to haul my butt into court, which at that time we could discuss the validity of his claims in the first place.
That's the short version. What you need to do is buy a recent collecting guide such as this, that will get you started. Then, after that if you have a concern, you go to your local BLM office and ask for information about what claims have been filed in the area you plan on collecting in.
Edit: Also, I should mention that collecting is illegal in National Parks, and also on private property. But I have a hard time thinking that someone would get more than just a trespass citation aka misdemeanor and not hauled into court. Though digging on private property might be considered vandalism. You can ask your friend which of these it was. I don't try to collect in these areas, so maybe someone can chime in on this.
Edit2: If you destroy property in State Parks, then this also might happen.
So this is the general idea.
Here is a nice website if you're looking for anything in particular or just want to know more in your area. I'm from the east side of OR so I'm a bit jelly you're on the coast, agates are my favorite to collect. One book I highly recommend is this. If you're like me and have no idea where to go it's a great guide. I am also new to the rock collecting scene and have started tumbling too, it's great fun and I hope you keep finding awesome stuff!
For opals, you are going to want to go to Virgin Valley which is in the NW corner of Nevada, so definitely more than two hours away, but worth it. The House Range in Utah is Famous for its trilobites, and IIRC that's probably less than two hours from Great Basin. The Battle Mountain area is known for turquoise. Probably want to pick up a guidebook like this one. Have fun, Great Basin is an awesome park!
They are minerals Marie!
Ce vrei tu e un ghid pentru identificarea de minerale nu de pietre. Rocile sunt agregate de minerale, simplist vorbind.
Asta arata decent. Sunt multe carti cu multe poze colorate prin comert, dar sunt pline de info vagi sau pur si simplu gresite. Stai departe de cele in Romana, sunt traduse prost.
Daca te pasioneaza, si vrei sa stii mai mult de atat, recomand orice manual de mineralogie.
http://www.amazon.com/Simon-Schusters-Guide-Rocks-Minerals/dp/0671244175/ref=zg_bs_290105_7
My favorite handbook. Some essential rockhound tools would be a rock hammer, chisel, hand loupe, etc.
Learned some basic rocks/minerals as a kid - Quartz, Calcite, Tigereye, Agate, Pyrite, Malachite, Azurite, Labradorite, Granite, Conglomerate, Sandstone, Obsidian, Pumice, Fluorite, etc. I'd find some in my yard and collect them and look them up in some books I had or see them for sale in gift shops and got to know them this way.
Learned some more when I took Mineralogy and Petrology courses throughout my degree.
Learned even more by lurking this sub, seeing examples, and googling more info about ones I don't know about.
Some good resources include Simon and Schusters Guide, NPS, Mindat, etc. and if you're really serious about learning more, MIT offers free open courseware on Intro Geology and Petrology.
Fire up those walking sticks! Do flights of stairs and hills if possible. Start jogging. Rock climbers did very well in field camp.
Field camp is amazing. I recommend looking into UMich (I hear they've been cutting their program though), IU-Bloomington, University of Oklahoma, UH, UT, and UW-Seattle. IMO, take the longer field course if there are options within these programs.
Contour mapping, compass usage, and field techniques are important. I'd practice those now & buy the Compton book now since I've seen it sold for as much as $350 in the past. There's a cheaper, slightly less encompassing version of this book as well.
Utah is still a wonderful place for rockhounding and fossil hunting. Especially between Delta, UT and Tooele, UT (western border of the state).
Consider getting this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Rockhounding-Utah-William-Kappele/dp/1560444460
Talk to these folks:
http://thomasrangermtours.com
For the record, I don't get any financial gain from either of these recommendations.
Happy hounding!
I'm in the Provo area, where are you?
Keep an eye out for the 2013 Timpanogos Gem and Mineral Society show at the Spanish Fork Fair Grounds... They usually sell a small orange pamphlet with directions to some really good locations. It's part of the fund raiser so worth the $5-$7, and of course ask the guys at the booth they love chatting about rocks. Gem Fair also comes to the South Town Expo center a few times a year but that is 70% beads and fake crap.
My favorite site for locations...
http://user.xmission.com/~jbdaniel/index.htm
Lots of good detail and some not very active forums.
I like the book Rockhounding Utah , http://www.amazon.com/Rockhounding-Utah-William-A-Kappele/dp/1560444460
You can use Amazon preview and google books preview to check out the most of the sites. Also, Google the table of contents listings and you're sure to find plenty of articles about the particular site.
Personally my favorite places are as follows (google to find directions etc).
The Dugway Geode beds are excellent, get directions online, take plenty of water and a high clearance vehicle (needed for the last 1 mile or so). Drive around until you find the pits with the tractor. DO NOT dig the pit the tractor is next to, leave that for the claim owner. He is okay with rock hounds digging the other pits though.
Looking for trilobites near delta is fun, although you may want to try some of the commercial pits rather than the public one next to UDIGG. If you are spending the time and gas $ to get out there you may want pay to work to the prime areas. I've spent a lot of hours smashing rocks in the public quarry with very little luck. However, if you are in it for the adventure searching around online should lead you to some directions to some pretty decent sites.
I tumble a lot of the stuff I collect so I go after a lot of agate and jasper. There is some pretty good agate out near Wendover near the salt flats. Take the road that heads toward Silver Island Mountains (lots of directions online and in books). That road gets graded every so often and I have found some amazing stuff just sitting off the side of road in the berm. Drive slow with your widow rolled down and eyes peeled.
Last Chance Road on I-70 between Salina and Grand Junction has some really nice agate. Be warned though, the sign at the start of the road warning about washed out roads is SERIOUS. Last year it was impassable by all but the toughest 4x4's, I came upon on sorry traveler that had been stuck in the mud for 8 hours before a truck came along that was capable of pulling him out. If it's a dry year like now it's no problem with a car.
The "ghost town" area on Joy, UT in the Drum Mountains (near Delta) has some nice agate and jasper. Look for a location called Agate Hill, I find lots of red/yellow jasper further up the road closer to the hills.
Vernon and Salina wonder stone are super easy to collect and look pretty neat. It's won't polish all that well but it makes for great decorative pieces as is.
A really good place for collecting obsidian is on highway 257 between Delta and Milford. There is a turn off for a dirt road that leads to Kanosh, most directions online and in books will mention a sign that says "Kanosh 26" don't bother looking, it burned down a few years back. Keep an eye out the side of the road for black chunks of obsidian. When you start seeing a bunch of it get out and walk around. It's all over. Lots and lots of black stuff, some areas have some rather large mahogany chunks. If you climb of some of the hills you will find some very small pieces of really bright read obsidian, but all the deposits I have found are really fragmented smaller pieces.
I strongly recommend checking out the Black Rock hot springs just north of Taos.. If you're an avid bike rider, the Santa Fe area has some great trails. Dale Ball and the Santa Fe rail trail are pretty awesome. There's tons of cool places to check out if you're the outdoorsy type. Like Nambe Falls, Sandia Peak, Diablo Canyon, Santa Fe Baldy, and a bunch more. If you're interested in going rockhoudning, pick up a copy of Gem Trails of New Mexico... As far as good eats, I strongly recomend stopping at the Cowgirl at least once for dinner, the Santa Fe Baking Company at least once for breakfast, and the Aztec Cafe at least 42 times for coffee. If you're the artsy type, there is a shit ton of Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keefe and more silver and turquise than one could possibly shake a stick at. However, if you're looking for something a little different, check out the Chuck Jones Gallery... Also, if you don't wanna stick out like a flaming tourist, say it like it's one word "Sannuh-fey" not "Santa Fay" Putting the accent of the Fe and making it sound like Fay is a dead giveaway... And when you're out ordering a burrito and you're asked whether you'd like red or green chile sauce, if you wish to have a little of both, just say "Christmas"...
Check out Rockhounding Oregon: A Guide to the State's Best Rockhounding Sites. It’s a great resource for agate hotspots on the coast.
Sometimes books like this can be of some use. Sometimes, you just need to talk your hammer on a walk.
Are the pegmatites you're looking at known to have other minerals?
https://www.amazon.com/Rockhounding-New-York-Guide-States/dp/0762779004/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=fossil+guide+new+york&qid=1569523747&s=gateway&sr=8-3 Each state has its own guide...might want to try this
I would imagine there are books like this one...https://www.amazon.com/Rockhounding-New-York-Guide-States/dp/0762779004
I own the one for Oregon and it has given me some great info to start with. Also, take a look at local rock clubs.
http://www.herkimerdiamond.com is the only western-ish NY fee dig I'm aware of. This book has a list of rockhounding sites with appropriate maps/directions: https://www.amazon.com/Rockhounding-New-York-Guide-States/dp/0762779004?ie=UTF8&adid=02XDNXCXNHT0QN810XCY
here's another link that might help? http://albanykid.com/2010/05/24/rockhounding-new-york/
https://www.amazon.com/Rockhounding-Nevada-Guide-States-Sites/dp/0762771429
Agreed. There is a great spot for some geodes less than an hour away. If anyone wants more information on rockhounding in CO, the book "Rockhounding Colorado" is a great source of information..
These are the two favorites of the ones I have.
http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Minerals-Gemstones-Walter-Schumann/dp/0395511372
http://www.amazon.com/Simon-Schusters-Guide-Rocks-Minerals/dp/0671244175
Check out all the books in this series:
Geological Society of London Handbook Series
Also Compton is probably the best. You can find older versions for much cheaper usually.
I can't emphasize enough on getting decent safety glasses (even if you already wear glasses). I use my Estwing (a 13 lb-er I think) for geode cracking and the shards did like to aim for your eyes.
To OP; I would hit up any recent rock hounding books on your area on amazon. I have both [Gem Trails] (http://www.amazon.com/Trails-Northern-California-James-Mitchell/dp/1889786284/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372461605&sr=8-1&keywords=gem+trails+of+northern+california) and [Rock Hounding in California] (http://www.amazon.com/Rockhounding-California-2nd-Guide-States/dp/0762771410/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372461690&sr=1-1&keywords=rock+hounding+california) in my collection for when I visit eventually.
http://www.amazon.com/Cairns-Messengers-David-B-Williams/dp/1594856818/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452535859&sr=8-1&keywords=cairns
Geology, ecology, hiking. It doesn't take place exclusively in the PNW but it is written by an author from Seattle. It is really good, as you can guess by the rare amazon 5 star rating. If you like learning about how small impacts by man can affect ecology through history it's a great read.
I knew you would have some mega response to that like the scholar that you are. Have you ever heard of a tube agate? Or an eye agate? A simple google search will educate you, but I have the feeling in some way you will continue to believe what you want to believe to make yourself feel better. If you can't tell what it is based on the picture, then maybe sit out the comment section or say "hey thats neat, i don't know what that is." and carnelian agate found in MN...cmon guy. Blue agate? Just give it up, they come in more colors than 3 basic versions. There are gray lake superior agates, white ones, yellow ones, yes even RED ones. I am sorry that they came in those colors and some of them tricked you.
In an effort to resolve this bizarre argument you conjured I am going to drop some links to books about Lake Superior Agates. Your local library is a good way to read about this stuff for free as well.
https://www.amazon.com/This-Agate-Illustrated-Superiors-Michigan/dp/0970734204/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1467952203&sr=8-16&keywords=lake+superior+agate
https://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Agates-Superiors-Banded-Gemstone/dp/0979200695/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1467952203&sr=8-12&keywords=lake+superior+agate
https://www.amazon.com/Storied-Agate-Unique-Superior-Agates/dp/1591933099/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1467952203&sr=8-7&keywords=lake+superior+agate
https://www.amazon.com/Superior-Agates-Minerals-Identification-Guides/dp/1591932823/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1467952203&sr=8-4&keywords=lake+superior+agate
https://www.amazon.com/Agate-Hunting-Made-Easy-Superior/dp/1591933269/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467952203&sr=8-1&keywords=lake+superior+agate
https://www.amazon.com/Agates-Lake-Superior-Stunning-Varieties/dp/159193303X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1467952203&sr=8-3&keywords=lake+superior+agate
There's quite a few copies available on Amazon if anyone is interested.
Rockhounding New England: A Guide To 100 Of The Region's Best Rockhounding Sites (Rockhounding Series) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0762783656/ref=cm_sw_r_other_awd_6X26wb5VVT2AP
Rockhounding New York: A Guide To The State's Best Rockhounding Sites (Rockhounding Series) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0762779004/ref=cm_sw_r_other_awd_KY26wbYF584VV
Roadside Geology of New York (Roadside Geology Series) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0878421807/ref=cm_sw_r_other_awd_dZ26wbRZZCT7B
The Collector's Guide to the Minerals of New York State (Schiffer Earth Science Monograph) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0764343343/ref=cm_sw_r_other_awd_DZ26wbH96TSC2
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I've found rockhounding books usually have good intros and brief explanations which is good for beginners.
this book is a good general reference on all things rocks and minerals. the layout is simple to follow and the language is easy to understand (specialised knowledge not required).
Rocks and Minerals
it is a general guide so it probably wont cover every possible example but it is a good starting place.
Thanks! This will be my first attempt at doing anything out in the field so I'm hugely excited about it, even if it will be slow going and clumsy. =)
Got any recommendations for field identification books? I've got the Dorling Kindersley and the Philips guides at the moment - but they seem a bit light on the details. Are there any "classic" field guides worth picking up?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rocks-Minerals-Handbooks-Chris-Pellant/dp/1405359889/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407925317&sr=8-1&keywords=dk+rock+and+minerals
Lots of pretty pictures for him just now, and the text will be easy enough to read by age 10(ish), maybe younger if he maintains a really big interest like I did with dinosaurs at around that age.
Well, the way I learned how was by getting yelled at by our field instructor until we knew what we were doing...Something that has a reasonable way to look up cleavages, colour, hardness, and lustre is just about what you need. The DK one seems reasonable enough, beyond most of that information, it's just practice, practice, practice.
http://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Minerals-Peterson-Guides/dp/039591096X < I thiiiink this may be the one we had, but I honestly don't remember. I kept my optical mineralogy text because it's also has good hand sample descriptions, but I think I sold my pretty field guide because I needed to buy next year's texts...
Since we usually got a preamble before any trip, we got pretty lazy and didn't need it that much. We were usually only differentiating between 4-5 minerals, it stayed in our bag most of the time. (Great students, I know. Fact is that if you can ID quartz, the feldspars, pyroxene, and amphibole, you're pretty well off. XD)
Obviously, as an enthusiast, you don't have the 'luxury' of an old furry man yelling at you, but the fact remains that books will only go so far, and you just need to practice seeing cleavage, lustre, and all that. Getting an eye takes time, but it's a lot of fun. :D
The end-all mineral book. Not ideal for field identification, but amazing for the information it does contain. It's the one reference book that I have kept around and used throughout my academic and professional career.
I bought this and it was used A LOT during Min. It's pretty cheap and totally worth it!