Panarama of Round Mountain collecting site. [More of a Round Hill than a mountain] A BLM designated rockhounding area some
12 dirt miles off a main highway. This site is located in Arizona
but you start out on the dirt road in New Mexico. The first six miles
were great, the next four miles were o.k., but the last two were kind of
rough!
This is a large site most noted for fire agate. There is a lot of agate pieces but not a lot of "fire" to be found. What you can find in abundance is chalcedony, agate pieces, and some small 2 inch or less geodes. At the rock shop in Lordsburg, I was shown a large 6 " geode with quartz crystals covered in a white coating. The owner said that the geode was found reticently at Round mountain. I didn't find any that size only real small ones. |
My car is located in the center of the picture. I worked the dry washes that snake up the
hill on either side of my car's location. There seemed to be a lot
more potential "fire" agate exposed in these dry washes. I found
a few small marginal pieces.
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The Virden collecting site had some
beautiful New Mexico vistas!
This location is not far from the dirt road
that goes to Round mountain and is also on BLM land. The material
found here include brecciated jasper(Wonderstone), agate, chalcedony, and
petrified wood. I found one piece of wood and several great red jasper/agate
nodules. I also found a rather large piece of what I would call "brecciated
jasper"!
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My car located next to the dry stream bed. The collecting area was suppose to be on
the flat hill tops on the far top right side of the picture. I decided
to walk to the site because the road up to the hill tops went through the
stream bed before turning to snake up to the top of the hill. Good
thing because there were some real mushy spots along the way to the turn
out of the dry stream bed.
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