Endless Circles...or how to waste hours of time!9966

Originally Posted by DrWatson
Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkseid_of_town
My very first post in the forum was a sort of off topic thing I do and a forum reg hammered me pretty hard for it as the first response I was given so I worry now if I share or post anything

Here?

Originally Posted by Darkseid_of_town
Fossil coprolite is extremely hard, and tends to have gaps within it that over time infilled with quartz veins. The colors can be as grandiose as your mind can imagine and because the material is poop, it can have patterns and shapes within it that are extremely eye catching.

I sometimes find small pieces of bones and chewed bone within coprolite, associating as a carnivorous dinosaurs droppings. Even small claws, or swallowed teeth are possible.

Within other coprolites its quite common to find plant seeds, undigested leaves, tree bark, snails, and insect carpaces….Identifying the dropping as either herbivore or omnivore.


I sometimes wander into out of the way rock shops and have seen dealers attempt to sell reddish colored droppings as carnivorous and the greens as herbivores, but that is rubbish. The material fossilizes using whatever minerals are present in the groundwater that saturates it....
I recently purchased a few slices that were greens, and had infilled with clear quartz...on examination within those greens you can clearly see leaves and seeds making it an exemption to the rule.

Pretty crappy topic for discussion though...sorry

Originally Posted by Darkseid_of_town
Quote:

Originally Posted by obrie2tm
@Darkseid_of_town Found this while going though old office boxes...forgot I had it. Dinosaur bone and Malachite/Azurite.
Love the sphere collection! Came across a beautiful sphere of crinoids the other day as well at a local antique shop.

The pen is gorgeous! Its funny watching rock collectors and what they prefer...if it were something I made it would have one narrow stripe of malachite and the rest bone, rather than the reverse.....I own quite a few things, made from bone...buckles, rings, necklaces, bolos , its the only stone I really will wear. I even have a collection of knives with bone handles.

If that crinoid sphere was over 2 inches or priced under 30 dollars I hope you grabbed it.


I always see people set up at shows and so forth hawking tiny marbles and spheres of many different common stones for a fraction of the price of what a true sphere would cost....

If you ever see these and wonder if they are hand made or quality try rolling it around on a flat surface and see if it can roll normally or if it wobbles. The wobbling will warn you it isn't truly round …….in China and some other places tiny spheres are mass produced using marble mills...essentially similar to a pair of muffin pans one on top of the other, filled with rough pieces of stone, some abrasive and water. As the pans move back and forth the stone is churned around in its compartment forcing it to grind round or semi spherical. You can make dozens at a time this way, smaller and less....fault free than a single use machine like mine which tends to produce accurate, quality pieces but at a slower rate.