Post by wildmaven on Sept 1, 2013 12:44:08 GMT -8
I'm very new to this. In fact, yesterday was my very first rockhounding trip as an adult. I tried looking these up in my book (Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Rocks and Minerals) but found myself very frustrated. 
How do you all go about IDing? I know nothing about geology or minerals, as my degree is in Nuclear Medicine. 
I don't expect many responses, as I know this is a lot and it's hard to ID things from a scanned image.
But thanks to anyone who can help.
2, 3, 4, 6 and 11 are from Adelanto, CA near the mine by Mountain View Road.
1, 5, and 7, 9, 10 are ones I picked up as a kid when we were rockhounding in Nevada outside of Las Vegas.
Here are the larger views:
1.
2. The lady at the mineral store in town said this is Smithsonite, but it doesn't look like Smithsonite from my book.
3. Is that black stuff Black Dendrite?
4.
5.
6.
7.
8. (removed because I couldn't get a clear shot of the vein in it. You can see it in the lower right corner of the big image at the end of this post.)
9. Fossil??
10. A friend says this is a fossilized egg, but I just think it's eroded sandstone.
11.
Here's the big one so you can see the size comparison to a penny. Please forgive the weird blue banding around the edges of some of the specimens, it's an artifact from the flatbed scanner.
How do you all go about IDing? I know nothing about geology or minerals, as my degree is in Nuclear Medicine. 
I don't expect many responses, as I know this is a lot and it's hard to ID things from a scanned image.
But thanks to anyone who can help. 2, 3, 4, 6 and 11 are from Adelanto, CA near the mine by Mountain View Road.
1, 5, and 7, 9, 10 are ones I picked up as a kid when we were rockhounding in Nevada outside of Las Vegas.
Here are the larger views:
1.
2. The lady at the mineral store in town said this is Smithsonite, but it doesn't look like Smithsonite from my book.
3. Is that black stuff Black Dendrite?
4.
5.
6.
7.
8. (removed because I couldn't get a clear shot of the vein in it. You can see it in the lower right corner of the big image at the end of this post.)
9. Fossil??
10. A friend says this is a fossilized egg, but I just think it's eroded sandstone.
11.
Here's the big one so you can see the size comparison to a penny. Please forgive the weird blue banding around the edges of some of the specimens, it's an artifact from the flatbed scanner.
