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@@gerard8496 Sounds awesome! Next time I visit home I’ll try to check that out, thank you!

@@twobikesandadrone I’ve heard that the mudpots and bubbling springs can dry up later in the season, would be interested to know how you find it when you go! It really is a unique and special place geologically, I hope you enjoy it!

@@GeoRockNerd I truly can't wait to get out there and will do that soon while we're still in monsoon season.

@@frankyensan Great to hear, thanks for letting me know!

@@GeoRockNerd I wish I could add a photo to this question… I went left in the arroyo instead of right as you did. I found some absolutely fantastic purple, lavender, green, and orange fluorite in that direction. Absolutely stunning specimens were found. I then went higher up on those bentonite ridges where I found a fairly clear, cubit material, with long striations on the surface. Is that gypsum? I also found a seem of copper green mineral. Do you possibly know what I am referring to?

There’s a lot of variables, but in general the consensus seems to be 10s to 100s of thousands of years.

Thank you!

Thank you!

Glad to hear it! Thanks for watching!

You’re welcome! Make sure to check the Valles website for potential closures/dates for access etc.

You go down to the right into the large arroyo. Over the hills is interesting but not where the fluorite is.

Go to the right? I do not remember a large arroyo to the right. After going thru the gate, how far to the right is the large arroyo? Thank you for helping me on this.

😆 The bugs out there are so annoying! Gnat attacks, bees and flies, and if not them then super windy! Still an amazing place though.

@@GeoRockNerd I understand but we got to get that fly a volume down button 🤣

Sounds interesting! There’s certainly quite a variety of material out there.

@@GeoRockNerd I have since realized it is a chert nodule. It looks like the end of a bone. Waxy. Probly some ooze but I like to imagine a bone from something like the Merman from cabin in the woods.

You’re welcome! Everyone that wants to should get to enjoy our public lands!

Please see description for identification, it’s all there!

Seives could work, but also look for the coarse grained sandstone shown in the video, that’s what the teeth come out of.

You’re welcome! Might want to check status of area with the park, this is a few years old so things might’ve changed since then!

It’s a really cool spot! Hope you can check it out!

Love that “kidney ore” hematite from down south! Got that at a rock show in Abq, might’ve bought from you!

Awesome, so glad this was helpful! And congrats on your wedding and new found hobby! Thank you for watching!

I lived/worked in Grants on my first job as a geologist, drilling water monitoring wells in the area. There are some good minerals at some of the mines in the area, but a lot are private property.

Truly!

Part of it was in FS-138

Yes! There are places in NM where the ant hills are made of piles of tiny garnets! Red ants are great miners! 😆

Thank you for your kind words, appreciate that! I would have loved to give a talk to your rock club but I move to the northwest in 2021 for job and don’t make it back home too often, sadly!

@@GeoRockNerd Wow! That is exciting. All the best. Hope to see more videos of rock hounding in the area you are in now

Awesome to hear! Thanks for watching!

Good question, but not that I’m aware of! Calderas in general are often good places to prospect for metals since the hydrothermal systems are usually very dynamic and persistent for many years post-eruption.

I feel the same way, these huge trees are amazing!

This area in particular was completely unpicked over, so many choice pieces, and I have so much already, I left sooo much, including all those trees too!

Best advice if you want to find wood in New Mexico, check maps where BLM or Forest Service land intersects with outcrops of the Triassic Chinle Formation, the Cretaceous Ojo Alamo Formation and the Eocene Galisteo Formation. The rockhound guidebooks for NM are good resources too!

@@GeoRockNerd I'm definitely taking note, thank you! I'll get down there one day. Probably later than sooner but who knows.. If I can find someone to drag down there with me I might be down there next month! (yeah right) Happy hunting!

I was thinking of doing a video on this topic because it is confusing. The first thing to note is all those things are also varieties of chalcedony - micro or cryptocrystalline quartz. Petrified wood is usually a chalcedony (often jasper) replacement of the wood structure over time, although it can be replaced with things other than chalcedony, like opal, copper minerals, pyrite etc, like other kinds of fossils. Agate = concentrically banded chalcedony nodule, onyx = straight banded chalcedony often found in veins aka “waterline agate”, jasper = opaque chalcedony (often forms from the silicification of mudstone or rhyolite lava), chert = chalcedony that forms as a chemical precipitate in lake beds and ocean floors and often contains microfossils of silicic sea creatures like radiolarians. Flint = a variety of chert found as nodules in the chalk deposits of Dover, UK and is grey/black or brown in color.

​@@GeoRockNerd I appreciate you taking the time. :) Although it only raises twice as many questions as it answers.. I need to pick someones brain in real life. I have too many nuances I need clarification on. I should've studied geology....

@@notflanders4967 There’s lots of websites and good books on geology that can help if you want to learn more!

Thank you for your kind words, appreciate that!

Check out the description on this video for road directions instead of coordinates: czcams.com/video/IPxTAsFKBFw/video.html

Here is a link to the Forest Service map that has the open roads on it: www.fs.usda.gov/r3/gis/mvum/Santa_Fe/SantaFe_Southwest.pdf

Thank you so much! we found our way to obsidian hill! It was sooooo beautiful and the obsidian/apache tears are PLENTIFUL! We even ran into a man who had watched this same video, had the coordinates and was collecting too! Thank you so much for your generosity in sharing the locations to your wonderful adventure. Because of your kindness, we were able to have a wonderful, AMAZING adventure too. <3 John, if you see this, it was great meeting you! Good luck hunting for the agate!

@@lisaevancho532 I love hearing that! Isn’t it an amazing area? I’m so glad you found the area and had success!! Thanks for watching!

That would be cool, but unfortunately I moved out of NM for a job and no longer in an area with great options for hounding, sadly. There’s a couple good rockhound groups in Northern NM though, bet they’d love to have you join them for some field trips! Let me know if you want some info!

That’s an agate, it has concentrically banded chalcedony on the outside and then the rectangular bits are waterline agate/onyx. This represents a loss of pressure within the agate over time while it was developing. Thanks for watching!

There is no meaningful way to know for sure, since these are found out of context (not in-situ) in modern river gravels, but we can make an educated guess that they are likely weathering out of the Cretaceous Paguate Member of the Dakota Formation where similar species are found. The Rio Puerco downcuts and drains through a lot of Cretaceous rocks, so that’s kind of my hypothesis.

Likely in the thousands of years, in general.

Awww thank you, that’s awesome!

Oh yay so glad you found some stuff! Not sure without seeing the white crystals you found, but there are calcite and barite out there too which are both possibilities! Thanks for watching!

As far as cleaning it, warm water and a soft toothbrush will get most of it pretty clean. If you see an iridescent sheen on it, that’s iron oxides so don’t use iron-out if you want to keep that sheen. Otherwise, there’s a lot of videos on CZcams with instructions on cleaning rocks with various acids, but I don’t normally find those necessary

Take a look at the MVUM for the forest, link here. www.fs.usda.gov/r3/gis/mvum/Santa_Fe/SantaFe_Southwest.pdf

You need to go south on 137 from 266, then when 137 splits off to the right you stay left. There is obsidian in the arroyo right after the split. If you keep going towards 492, the intersection where it splits off and the area all around there is great for both the obsidian as well as agate. Up the hills in the area and along the road, all have the potential for good stuff. The seam agate area is on 138, also off of 266, but any area around can have the agate, drusy and obsidian.

@@GeoRockNerd On 266 east, do you have to climb up the mountain? It was steep with no guard rail at the edge of a cliff lol

@@John_Mcclain007 Yes but that section is very short at the beginning, and there’s not really other spots like that once you get through it! All the many many times we went out there we never met a vehicle going in the opposite direction that we had to back up from!

@@GeoRockNerd You need to be a bit careful as of May 2023. They are doing a lot of logging up 266 Monday to Friday. Also, this is not a road you want to try and use if conditions are dicy, i.e. rain, wet or snow.