Wednesday, March 25, 2009

virtual rockhounding

agate bandingAgate banding

I find agates fascinating. The intricate detail in the banding of these semiprecious Lake Superior gems are amazing. It's been a long time since I actually went looking for agates, but now's the time as the ice mountains recede on the shoreline and reveal a new crop o washed up rocks.
Last weekend I picked up some small polished pieces from the Agate Lady- here's some quick closeups of them with dust, blemishes, etc still in the images. I'm going out there in April to visit her museum and look at more rocks.
The agate I got doesn't have a lot of contrast in the coloring, but when turning it to black and white, the banding is very visible.

ocean jasperocean jasper
The ocean jasper I guess is just found one place in the world, Madagascar. It's a really wild looking piece of rock.
I think I'll rumage around and see what I have accumulated over the years of my own finds or things I've picked up along the way and see what they look like closeup. When I get these closeup images, I have the ability to enlarge to, oh, 40x60" or so, it's really amazing when you can see the detail like that thru enlargement.

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