A Dragon's Hoard -- My Old Geode Hunk

[Starwhip]

Right. Sorry for the potato cam quality...

So I've had this for around six years, maybe more. Won it in a raffle at a science museum near my house, along with a piece of petrified wood. 6 inches long, about three wide, and three tall. Amethyst.

My stupid phone camera just does this thing no justice. In reality, it has brilliant purple and white hues.

Don't know how much it is worth, but I'm never selling it!

[Drangir]

Jesus Christ, Marie, they are minerals.

[Ethanadams]

Back when I use to live in [CLASSIFIED] I could find huge chunks of amythist and quarts along with a bunch of other stuff [uNKOWN] is really full of that kind o mineral and iron with makes the amythist I could try to send some old pictures if you want?

[Starwhip]

Back when I use to live in [CLASSIFIED] I could find huge chunks of amythist and quarts along with a bunch of other stuff [uNKOWN] is really full of that kind o mineral and iron with makes the amythist I could try to send some old pictures if you want?

Sure, put 'em here, if you wish.

[theend3r]

I've found this, but I don't think it's worth anything.

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[lajoswinkler]

Actually such well developed amethysts without massive inclusions are pretty expensive. I can see that being sold for 100 USD on some mineral exibition, but it can usually be fetched for a bit more than 50 on eBay when it comes from China's mines.

It's not worthless at all.

[Starwhip]

I've found this, but I don't think it's worth anything.

http://imgur.com/a/k4Wd6

Now that's what the coloration on mine is like!

Nice one!

[Ethanadams]

I have a lot moar than I remember so yeah expect a lot of photos on google drive I will the link in about 5 hours.

[ghostbuzzer7]

Can I stick that inside the ISRU converter for fuel I think I may have ran out of ores and you've got it. Either way, so purple

[RogueMason]

I've got a decently-sized collection of my own. Pencil for scale in the pictures

For the most part, my best pieces have been bought, but I have found a few good specimens while out on fieldwork (geology student here).

This shelf in a dark corner of my room isn't the whole of my collection, but it's the best of it. I've got two small-ish boxes elsewhere with assorted pebbles, stones, and massive quartz (massive meaning it doesn't have any well-defined crystals and is more just a lump of the mineral in question). There are a few lumps of quartz that do have some crystals, though.

Malachite. Very soft and delicate, but undeniably beautiful.

My biggest chunk of amethyst. I have a lot of amethyst lying around. One of the crystals on this chunk actually managed to slice both of my thumbs open at the same time once. They were only small cuts, but still, this stuff can be sharp.

Big lump of plain-old quartz crystals.

Celestine. The pale blue colour is the big allure with this.

This case is filled with all my smallest and best specimens. There are quite a lot of different things in here.

Cobalt crystals. Check Google images (search 'cobalt crystal'). I doubt that's the proper name for this stuff but hey, that's all I've got at the moment

It's one of my favourites, though. The iridescence is rather striking, with various blues and yellows and some pinks.

Blue-John fluorite from the Mam Tor/Castleton area. The hills there are the only place in the world where this Blue-John is obtained, so it's fairly expensive; the piece I've got here was £9.50 when I bought it around 7 years ago. The name Blue-John apparently derives from the french 'bleu-jaune', translating to 'blue-yellow'; the fluorite does indeed range from the blue-purple I have to some yellows, too.

Pyrite.

Aquamarine, a relative of emerald (both are based on beryllium).

Turquoise.

Aragonite, a variant of calcite that has a different crystal structure. It's thermodynamically unstable and will tend to revert to calcite over a time of 10⁷ or 10⁸ years.

Tiger's Eye.

Emerald, gold topaz, and blue topaz.

Quartz bands in what I believe is a form of sandstone. I'd have to have a proper look at the properties to be sure. Picked it up on a beach in Pembrokeshire.

Stones from a beach in Pembrokeshire (probably a different beach to the one above). The left has small quartz bands, and the right... well, it's green. Not too sure what it is

Sodalite.

Another lump of amethyst, just smaller.

A very small lump of galena, or lead ore. Even at this small size, you can feel the weight this stuff carries; it's pretty damn dense.

You saw this chunk of rose quartz in the first picture. My left hand shows how big it really is. What my left hand doesn't show is how damn heavy it is. Quartz is fairly dense, so a chunk this big would do some damage if you dropped it on something even from a small height

That's not everything, but they are my best pieces. I'm looking into getting some kyanite, and I would like to get my mitts on some granite and obsidian, too.

[Starwhip]

Oh.

I forgot about the three boxes of miscellaneous gemstones and the sack of quartz geodes in my closet.

Pictures after I'm done with homework.

(Also, spoilers don't open for me on the desktop computer... )

[Ethanadams]

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0Bxs9CfbO1DHEfkhndGpUQ1lvVmk0MmNfR0JZQmgxZ3NQT1pYY3JzaVYzU2JRQTNPMWdjRlk&usp=sharing

lots of amethyst. quarts, a big peice of solidifed lava, eggat, petrified wood and some other missilanius stuff

the last few photos of poslished stones i bought but the rest i found in the ground.

i had a lot more but i recently moved so i had to throw out at least 50 peices like this some were HUGE

[Starwhip]

You've got some nice pieces there, Ethanadams.

[Ethanadams]

i found that peice of lava in the ground wich is weird because i dont noar did i live near volcanos and i was on a very safe place with the plates so were did it come from is the question

[moogoob]

OOh rock thread! Don't have any pics, but I've got lots of rocks. I have a Nautiloid fossil I found in a flood plain - a local museum archeologist put it at 445 million years old. Several nice quartz samples - clear, Amethyst, Citrine. I also have a couple large mica crystals - a few biotite and a white muscovite.

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i found that peice of lava in the ground wich is weird because i dont noar did i live near volcanos and i was on a very safe place with the plates so were did it come from is the question

A geologist would probably tell you "someone put it there". Brought some to the aforementioned museum's identification clinic, and a large, rounded suspected meteorite turned out to be most likely iron ore smelting leftovers used to pave railroads which have crisscrossed the area it was found in for hundreds of years.