Rockhounding Agate, Chalcedony and Obsidian in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico
Vložit
- čas přidán 31. 08. 2020
- Easy rockhounding on road beds in the Jemez Mountains
Go east from the Paliza Campground near Ponderosa, New Mexico on Forest Service Road 266 to find agate, chalcedony and Apache Tear obsidian in the roads, drainages and hills. 4 wheel drive vehicles strongly recommended.
Thank you so much for doing these videos. Yours are the most scientific and thorough videos that I've come across on identify minerals/rocks etc. Cheers!
Katie Kelly Thank you! I’m a geologist and do try to explain things when I make videos! Thanks for your kind words!
@@GeoRockNerd Headed up to Jemez tomorrow to do some rockhounding! Wish us luck.
Katie Kelly I recommend the forest service roads east of Ponderosa for some excellent finds!
@@GeoRockNerd I'm coming from Santa Fe and I think we are going to hit the FR289 & FR268 for our first adventure. I'm hauling two dogs this round. Thanks for the tip and I'll share if we find anything fun!
@@katiekelly2047 were the FR289 and FR268 roads open? I've been seeing that they were closed
Thank you ! Rookie rock hound learning a lot !!!
Looks like super fun and easy collecting, thanks for sharing!
It's so easy, right out of the road and in the dry river beds! One of my favorite places to rockhound!
I am so glad to find someone else who goes absolutely wingnut over Apache Tears. There are times I'll spend hours every day just obsessing over every shiny black rock that grabs my attention. Great info on this one too. Have you ever looked closely at the red ant hills? They are loaded with larger granular rocks that they mined from their tunnels.
Yes! There are places in NM where the ant hills are made of piles of tiny garnets! Red ants are great miners! 😆
ace Skys , love the views, some real cool finds
Thank you!
@@GeoRockNerd welcome to thecaptainshow
Ragnar loves those Apache Tears!
This looked like a fun rock hunt. 😺
It was indeed fun! Thanks for watching! 😄
that first one you picked up is almost the same size as the 1 i have. my mom found it in near the US border of Mexico between Laredo and McAllen, Tx
Nice! Is it clear or cloudy? I'm always curious about the properties of obsidian from other locations!
Thank you for sharing your beautiful finds w us. We tried to go up there last weekend, but the road is closed at the camp entrance and you can’t pass through on that side because of the fires maybe.
Oh yeah the fire encroached on 266, I’m sure the Forest Service is doing the post-fire assessments in the area. Hopefully the forest is opened again soon!
Thank you for sharing! Hounded N.M. myself last winter, so spectacular! I felt like Billy the Kid !!!
Back here in Wisconsin, we have begun finding Agates where they have not been found before (literally tripping all over them), as well as what appears to be Agatized Sponge & Coral.
It's as if the rocks are finding me.
Looking forward to more from ya!
Fantastic!!! I love finding unknown locations for stuff, that’s amazing! Agatized coral sounds amazing too. Do you find Petoskey stones too where you are?
@@GeoRockNerd I have found one.... Central WI in the middle of a field! Planning a trip North end of Summer before returning to Soccoro Co., N.M. in Winter (& gotta hit White Oaks once more in my lifetime - Septarian Nodules!).
@@ronaldsteele5740 Nice, those Petoskey stones are great, would love to find one someday! And collect some Great Lakes agates too, of course! I’ve never been to White Oaks, are the nodules good there? I have found cool nodules and concretions in both Triassic and Cretaceous rocks around New Mexico, they are really fun to find!
@@GeoRockNerd I went in search of gold... Found none yet did find several Septarians. One whole & solid, a few crumbled in my hands leaving only a solid heart. Dark (unlike the Utah Septarians).
I'll be bringing to N.M. a bucket or two with a mix of the Lake Superior Agates & Agatized Sponges/Coral (with a few nice agatized pet wood that has a beef steak grain look to the slices). Rockhound Rony's travelling barter show! xD
@@ronaldsteele5740 Sweet! Lets do a trade!
Thanks so much for all three of your "finding" videos. I'm taking my granddaughter up there tomorrow. It's a little cool but I bet we have fun. She really wants to collect her own Apache Tears. So off we go. We want to go for Pecos Diamonds too. That was also a great video. I totally appreciate when you talk about the ground signs that show the promising locations. Thanks so much, lots of hounders don't want to share their "spots."
I am not sure if the roads up there are open in the winter, or how much snow there may be! You might want to check the forest service website or call the ranger station to make sure the roads are passable and open!
The roads out there can be confusing. We take FS 10 to the Paliza Campground and then turn onto 266. The road is steep and there is a cliff on the right for a stretch of it. Then you turn right on DP-10 aka 137. We like to go down to where 137 splits off to the right, this is some miles down the road, but stay left until the next arroyo. This is Borrego Canyon and the arroyo gravel has Apache Tears here.
I wouldn't attempt that area until the snow melts. 4x4 and tire chains are a must for the single lane road with large cliff. If there is any snow you'll have quite the challenge finding anything. Emergency services are not close by and phone service is poor so prepare well if you attempt it.
@@mossyhollow3732 That’s good advice, Mossy! Thank you.
Well, fun ride. Zero snow. 50 degrees by the time we headed home. LOCKED GATE was a bummer. Didn't even get to the campground. Think I found a chunk of rainbow rhyolite. Not sure but pretty. We had a blast.
@@mossyhollow3732 no snow at all.
Incredible
Thank you!
Love your fun..informative adventures!! Wish I could send pix for identification help..😊
You can message me pics on Instagram! Not always the best way to ID things accurately, but I can take a stab at it! Thanks for watching!
Another wonderful informative video! Just love the location. You found some really cool stuff. Nice large apache tears and desert chalcedony and chalcedony rose. I have some chalcedony from out that way too, I've tumbled it (had to run it for almost two months, but looks amazing.) Some of them are kinda firey or rusty looking? Do you know what causes some of them to be this way? Some of them have cool glow in uv light too. Thanks for sharing this awesome video, really enjoyed viewing it! 🤘
It’s just one of my favorite places, so glad you enjoyed it too! Usually the reddish tones are iron inclusions, like fire agate has goethite or limonite layered between chalcedony layers. It’s possible also that it’s a surface iron staining from the environment, that’s super common too. I haven’t checked this material for fluorescence but that’s a good idea! Thanks for your kind words and thanks for watching!
Would love to take the huge road trip to Rockhound in New Mexico. So many amazing stones there
You should! And rockhound through all the states on the way too!
@@GeoRockNerd would absolutely love to.. Can't get the hubby to join
@@MrsOx-jz9fg That’s too bad, I’m sorry. 😥
@@GeoRockNerd some day. I don't give up very easily lol. My dream is to get a RV and travel to rock hound and mine my own crystals and gemstones.. thank you😊😊
I could not find FS road 266, i found 269 not sure if i missed it, trying to plan trip?
266 starts at the Paliza Campground near Ponderosa. Please see the map at this link, it shows the campground and 266 aka Bear Springs
www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/santafe/recarea/?recid=75800
@@GeoRockNerd Thank You, I will be videoing this trip
@@bobs-rocks If you look at my other Jemez videos, I have put the approximate coordinates of some of the collecting areas in the description. That might help you too!
@@GeoRockNerd Thank you, I will review them
This is great, thanks for the knowledge on the area! You found a lot of Chalcedony/Apache tears out there! The piece at 12:32 looks like your typical bubbly fire agate, so cool! this looks really similar to the material I found at saddle mountain in Arizona, lots of white chunks lying around everywhere! Was also wondering if you ever cut any of those geodes?
Thank you Mitch! The area is amazingly full of cool stuff to find, plus it’s gorgeous out there! I’ve never been to Saddle Mountain but I own some material from there, it’s amazing! Would love to rockhound there someday. I did cut a few of the geodes, most were disappointing, but I will do a video of my results sometime!
@@GeoRockNerd Thanks for getting back to me! Awesome! Yeah that is a beautiful area with all the Ponderosa pines and nice scenery. I found some geodes in the southwest too, and 90% were kinda dissapointing, but still fun to find. some are nice, but like you said a lot of duds.
@@mitchgillilan Most of what I’ve found in the Jemez are solid rhyolite nodules or just filled with a dark muddy looking rock. Some few have bubbly blue chalcedony, which is nice! Southern New Mexico has much better geodes/nodules from what I’ve heard - down near Silver City/Deming!
@@GeoRockNerd - yes, rockhound state park has some very interesting areas, one of the largest outcrop exposures of obsidian ive ever come across in my life (up the south flank just above the smashed down fence-line lol), and is widely known for it's "thunder eggs" (nodules as you call them) ...and a nice old man in a rock shop near the entrance who'll tell you more than you'll ever need to know about "nodules", lol - you can walk around the entire top cap of the park (backside), but it's a very serious trek (no trail) and good way to break an ankle if your not careful - 'tons' of obsidian, literally
I'm going down to whitesands this weekend and after I'm going to visit a spot i saw another tubber on, collecting crystals above Organ - I used some silos in the background and google earth to find the exact spot they were digging - doesn't have fencing but not sure if it's private land or not ...wondering how quick I'll be chased off, lol
@@gregj7523 Sounds fun, please share what you find if you have any luck!
What you have there is obsidian nodules. The only stones that can legitimately be called "Apache Tears" come from Superior, Arizona.
Yeah well they’re called that all over the world. Sorry.
How is the road going up there now? I used to go up quite a bit and always bring a shovel to fix the road.
If you take 266 it’s really bad in some spots, and way longer than the other way we like. We take 137 to 492/492-C to DP-70 which goes back to 266. There’s rough spots and you need high clearance and 4WD (a sacrificial paint job helps too 😆) but way easier than taking 266 the whole way.
What larger town is ponderosa near? I can't find it on my map. My wife fell in love with the tears and she does not have to climb to find them. Nice vid. The volume was a little low for this old man lol. Havagudun gal.
The turn off for Ponderosa is a little ways past the Jemez Pueblo on Hwy 4, and before you get to Jemez Springs. From Bernalillo/Rio Rancho you take 550 north, then take 4 towards Jemez Springs. Once you are through the Pueblo, look out for the sign/turnoff on your right towards Ponderosa. There is a winery there and you will see signs for it on Hwy 4. I will try to speak up better in my videos, I have a loud voice and have tried not to be too overwhelming in my videos! Thanks for the kind words and thanks for watching!