Picture of the Day - My Final #3 Hunt

Today my bother by another mother, Ron, and his son Ethan and I got run out of Secret Field #3 in Templeton, CA. The actual owner of the property or one of them as he framed it, drove up and flagged us down to talk to us. He told us that although we had permission to be there from the lessees of the property, his out-of-town partners didn't like the legal risk of having guests on the property. Ron and I don't believe the latter part of the story and suspect he is the sole owner and wanted us out but felt bad about it so put it off on the fictitious "other" owners. Thanks a lot lawsuit-happy America! Below is my final haul from this short-lived (the last nine months or so we enjoyed it on the whole and I enjoyed part of it off and on for the past dozen years or more) biconoid and petrified whale bone locality. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Picture of the Day - Today's #1s From #3

This was today's haul from Secret Spot #3 in Templeton: tractor-disk-fractured petrified whale vert (upper right), tractor-disk-fractured biconoid (upper left), and various carnelians and yellow agates. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Beloved Biconoid Tubes Redux

My dear friend Lin recently played around with the photographs I took and shared HERE last month of my cut and polished Templeton biconoid specimen featuring the silica tubes. The images she thus created I share with you below.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

My Beloved Biconoid Tubes

In 2008 or 2009 my then-girlfriend and I purchased the only old collection that K&K Earthwerks ever purchased. It was small by old collection standards and was all that remained of the collection of an old rockhound and lapidary couple whose daughter then-living in Atascadero, CA, sold to us. During their lives the old couple had been members of the now-defunct(and still-defunct) Estero Bay Gem & Mineral Club. This collection contained a lot of leverite (leave-'er-right there) but there were some nice finds contained therein as well. One of them was a half-cut biconoid from Templeton, CA, from right in the middle of the now-legendary Twin Cities Hospital collecting zone now mostly covered by development. I held onto this piece keeping it as a yard rock but recently asked a fellow member of the Santa Lucia Rockhounds, to wit, Galen Moyer, to polish it for me which he did a fabulous job of and what this revealed within the stone blew me away: silica tubes!

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Spring 2011 Biconoid Hunt

This morning the Santa Lucia Rockhounds conducted a field trip to a location in the Coast Ranges of San Luis Obispo County where Biconoids are found in abundance. We met up at the OSH parking lot in South Paso Robles at 7 AM and left caravan-style for the trek to the location to which we as a club had the permission of the ranch-owner to be there until noon today. There was a proviso that we all sign a waver and only those with a second signed copy of the waver on their person could be on the property. Having signed this at the rendezvous point we followed club president Richard Smithen to the collection site and spent the morning collecting and enjoying the beautiful scenery, gorgeous weather and interesting geology.

Our morning rendezvous

Our parked convoy below the collection site.

Hillside containing the largest and best biconoids.

Closer in view showing some of the larger Biconoids scattered about.

Even closer in view showing Chris Driesbach and Dave Murray hunting.

My little dog Tequila excitedly wanting to get involved in the action.

Jason Martines posing with a possibility.

Jason has a reputation in the club as one of the two best in the club.

Chris Driesbach found this biconoid and split it in two.

Half A

Half A

Half A

Half B

Half B

Chris Driesbach's above Biconoid is notable for several reasons: it is relatively large in size ( about 18 inches diameter), features the classic and distinctive biconoid core configuration, is filled with druzy quartz, quartz filling is stained by iron oxide, and Half B contains a stalactite-like structure.

Fini

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved)