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More Geologic Goodies – Buffalo Gap National Grasslands

OK, so the gorgeous yellow-orange Fairburn was the highlight of my rockhounding trip this weekend, but it certainly wasn’t the only “find”.  Here’s a selection of some of the other agates, jaspers, etc.  What amazes me about this location on the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands is the seeming infinite variety of what you can find, all within one very small area. All of these were collected within a one-square mile area.

Prairie Agates - South Dakota

A collection of Prairie Agates, something you find relatively often on the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, but they’re so pretty and so variable that I can’t help but collect more.

Agate/Jasper - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands

This one was SO striking when I saw it lying there that I couldn’t help but collect it. I admit however that I have no idea what this is…any ideas?

Prairie Agate - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands

A gorgeous prairie agate (or what I’d call a prairie agate), with some very intricate banding and patterns.  The green is a bit of lichen I have yet to clean off. 

Bubblegum Agates - South Dakota

Bubblegum agates! I actually have a somewhat difficult time finding many of these, but always pick them up when I do. Of all the stones out here, it’s the bubblegum agates that really “shine” (ha) when I put them through the polisher. Once you start to wear down those nodules, there are often some truly incredible patterns and banding underneath.

Banded Agate - South Dakota

Stones like this make me want to take a hammer and break every stone open. I don’t have a rock saw or anything, but I imagine there are SO many hidden treasures like this on the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, pieces where you don’t see the beauty unless you slice them open.

Prairie Agate - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands

A prairie agate. The orangish ones are probably the most common, but there are some pretty red tones in many of them as well.

Agate - South Dakota

While many agates have the banding patterns shown on this post, there are some other cool patterns you find as well. Love the pink “druzy” crystalline area that forms the heart of this agate, with some banding and other patterns around it.

Jasper - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands

A jasper, of which there are many on the grasslands.

Miscellaneous Agate - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands

One more agate (at least that’s what I’d call it), with some interesting fine banding.

Jackpot! Agate find on Buffalo Gap National Grasslands

Been stressful at work lately so I took off Friday and did something I’ve only done one other time this summer…head out to the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands and go rockhounding. It wasn’t the most pleasant of days! The forecast called for 75 and cloudy, but when I got about 60 miles away, the fog started getting thicker and thicker, and soon it was accompanied by a light drizzle.  Much to my chagrin, things were exactly the same at my favorite rockhounding spot southwest of Kadoka.  I ended up rockhounding from about 8 AM to 2 pm, and the temperature never got higher than 60, with the drizzle falling most of that time.

I found plenty of “good” material.  As many prairie agates as I could want, as always.  Bubblegum agates. Quartz. Petrified Wood. Jaspers. Adventurine.  But the “prize” for people searching out there is a Fairburn agate. Since we started doing this last summer, we’ve probably been out there about 8 times, and have found a Fairburn about half the time, and that’s with a good, hard days’ search each time.

As the drizzle was just thick enough to make you a bit miserable Friday, I was contemplating leaving. But as I paused for a second to assess my situation, I saw a bright yellowish-orange stone ahead of me, one that really stood out from the others around it in terms of the color.  Much to my delight, as I approached I saw some fine parallel banding…Fairburn! And a pretty good sized one, at over 2 inches in length.  I did continue rockhounding for  awhile before returning to the car and getting a good look at the banding.

A find that made a miserable weather day a whole lot brighter.

Fairburn Agate - South DakotaFairburn Agate - South Dakota

The Dakota Prize – Haiku of the Day

Dakota’s Prize

Dakota’s painted prize
Water, rock, and time conspire
A rainbow set in stone

Fairburn Agate - South Dakota

An elusive Fairburn agate, from the wonderful rockhounding area of Buffalo Gap National Grasslands in South Dakota. I’m headed there in the morning for a day of rockhounding, so what better time for my first ever ROCK-related haiku of the day? Such a difficult prize to find, as chances are all I’m back tomorrow without one, but OH so worth it when you do find one.

Latest Agate/Jasper Batch from Buffalo Gap National Grasslands

I’ve been on vacation for a couple of weeks, and have been playing catch up since getting back a week ago.  Hence no blog posts for a few weeks. One advantage of being gone…my rock tumbler continued to carry on, and finished off a really beautiful batch that I’ve been working on the last 3 months.  It’s one I’m particularly fond of, because every stone here is one that my son and I found on the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands here in South Dakota.

I guess I have a hard time classifying these, although most are prairie agates, with some bubblegum agates, jaspers, and quartz as well.  Photos of the latest batch (click on the smaller ones at the end for a larger view).

Prairie Agate - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands

Prairie Agate - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands

Prairie Agate - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands

Prairie Agate - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands

Prairie Agate - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands

Prairie Agate - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands

Bubblegum Agate - Buffalo Gap National GrasslandsBubblegum Agate - Buffalo Gap National GrasslandsBubblegum Agate - Buffalo Gap National GrasslandsBubblegum Agate - Buffalo Gap National GrasslandsBubblegum Agate - Buffalo Gap National GrasslandsJasper - Buffalo Gap National GrasslandsJasper - Buffalo Gap National GrasslandsJasper - Buffalo Gap National GrasslandsPrairie Agate - Buffalo Gap National GrasslandsPrairie Agate - Buffalo Gap National GrasslandsQuartz - Buffalo Gap National GrasslandsPrairie Agate - Buffalo Gap National GrasslandsPrairie Agate - Buffalo Gap National GrasslandsPrairie Agate - Buffalo Gap National GrasslandsPrairie Agate - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands

Updated “South Dakota Rockhound” pages

Bubblegum Agate - South Dakota Rockhound

An incredible, polished bubblegum agate from the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands of South Dakota. An amazing little piece, it was a small, black, featureless lump when we found it, but we’ve found that these little dark bubblegums often have some GORGEOUS patterns that reveal themselves once you polish them for a while. There are other examples on the updated pages on South Dakota Rockhound pages.

I’m 51 years old. I already have so many unprocessed bird photos sitting on my hard drive that I doubt there are enough years left in my life to process them all, and add them to my website or blog. It’s easy to take photos!  It’s FUN to take photos!  It’s much less fun to process them all and DO something with said photos.

And now my son and I have a new hobby that we started last summer…rockhounding in the incredible areas near the Badlands of South Dakota. We certainly have found some beautiful pieces of agate, jasper, petrified wood, and other stones over the last year.  The wonderful and variable patterns and colors just BEG a photographer to get out the camera…I can’t resist!  As if I needed more unprocessed photos cluttering up my hard drive, now I’m also taking macro photos and photos of rocks and minerals, many of which will likely never see the light of day.

I’m trying! I’m trying to be more selective in what I shoot, both for birds and for rocks!  And in an effort to at least get some photos of my favorite pieces out on my website, I have just recently updated the “South Dakota Rockhound” section of my website.  Click on the following for photos of some of the pieces we’ve found over the last year. There are also some cool macro photos of other mineral assets we’ve acquired over the past year (for now, just a batch of Mexican Crazy Lace agate).  As with the birding pages on my website, I’ll try to continually update the Rockhound site as I have time!  For now, enjoy the new photos.

South Dakota Rockhound (Click here)

Mexican Crazy Lace Agate - Macro Photograph

A macro photo of one of the pieces of Mexican Crazy Lace (agate) we bought recently.

Pondering Petrified Wood

Human beings are funny creatures. When we see something, we immediately want to categorize it.  For a birder, identifying and tallying species is a huge part of the hobby. For my work as a scientist working with satellite imagery, my task is to categorize the types of land cover (cropland, urban, deciduous forest, etc.) on the earth’s surface.  For a rockhound?  I’m struggling with identification as a rockhound newbie, just as I did 20 years ago when I was a birding newbie.

Petrified wood is one category of material I thought was easy to identify. When I’m out on the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, there is a LOT of petrified wood lying around. By that, I mean there’s a lot of easily identifiable pieces that look exactly LIKE wood, with obvious grain patterns.  But as with anything in life, it’s not that easy.  Below are some of the obvious, and not so obvious pieces I’ve found on the Grasslands. Thoughts? Are all of these petrified wood?

Petrified Wood - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, South Dakota

First, an obvious piece of petrified wood. This is what I find the most of…gray exterior pieces with clear grain patterns, some of which are so detailed they look like fresh pieces of wood.

Petrified Wood - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, South Dakota

Another obvious one. Both of these first two pieces have also been tumble polished to a nice shine.

Potential Petrified Wood - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, South Dakota

And this piece? This is the most colorful piece I’ve found, for something that’s possibly petrified wood. You certainly see a linear “grain” running throughout. Petrified wood? Perhaps an agatized petrified wood?

Potential Petrified Wood - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, South Dakota

Same piece as above, except on the flip side. Again, you see the grain pattern throughout.

Potential Petrified Wood - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, South Dakota

A less obvious one. The photo doesn’t show it as clearly as what you see through a loupe, but there are rough “grain” patterns. They’re more little streaky nodules all oriented the same direction. I know there’s petrified palm that can be found in this area, but I don’t know what exactly the palm looks like from this area.

Potential Petrified Wood - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, South Dakota

A similar one, with little linear nodules lined up in the same orientation like a wood grain (again, a bit hard to see in this photo).

Potential Petrified Wood - Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, South Dakota

The photo of this piece does a better job showing the type of “grain” seen in the previous two pieces as well. Obvious, and all oriented in the same direction.

Macro Mania

As a bird photographer I don’t put on my macro lens very often, but I got it out this afternoon to take some macro photos of the batch of Mexican Crazy Lace agates that I got this past week. Before I started tumble polishing them, I wanted to record what they look like in their natural state. When you zoom in extremely close like this, you can really see the beauty. It boggles my mind that these gorgeous patterns are all made by nature…such variety, such cool patterns, such wonderful colors.

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace AgateMacro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace AgateMacro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Macro Photo - Mexican Crazy Lace Agate

Crazy for Mexican Crazy Lace!

Already, now I’m in deep. Since we started rockhounding and polishing this summer, It’s all been focused on self-collected material. Nearly all of that has been done on the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands in western South Dakota. Now, for the first time…I (gasp!) actually PAID for a box of rocks. Sure, it wasn’t much…$4 a pound, for 5 pounds of rocks. But I’ve crossed a line now, where it’s now fair game to pay hard-earned cash for rocks.  It started when I was on a rockhounding website, and I saw someone who had just gotten a bunch of “Mexican Crazy Lace” agates to tumble polish. It’s a kind of banded chalcedony, found (surprisingly!) in Mexico, in the state of Chihuahua.  Such gorgeous, gorgeous material that tumble polishes very well…I had to have it! Here are some of the raw, un-tumbled pieces that came in my first ever purchase of a box of rocks. Check back in about, oh, 2-3 months, and I should have these polished up!

Mexican Crazy Lace

Mexican Crazy Lace

Mexican Crazy Lace

Mexican Crazy Lace

Mexican Crazy Lace Mexican Crazy Lace Mexican Crazy Lace Mexican Crazy Lace

Mexican Crazy Lace Mexican Crazy Lace

Mexican Crazy Lace

Mexican Crazy Lace

Mexican Crazy Lace

Mexican Crazy Lace

Mexican Crazy Lace

Mexican Crazy Lace

Mexican Crazy Lace

Mexican Crazy Lace

Mexican Crazy Lace

Mexican Crazy Lace

New Polished Batch – Best Yet!

There are two moments in polishing stones that are akin to Christmas morning for a kid.  One is after the first rough polish. It’s at that stage where you get some wonderful hidden surprises, where the rough polishing has removed outer material and exposed some beautiful patterns underneath (happens a lot with bubblegum agates, for example).  The second big moment is taking a batch out of the final polish. It’s a long process to polish rocks!  I’ve learned patience, and it’s usually a two-month process to go from rough material, to a beautiful, shiny final product.  Here are photos of the latest batch…my best yet, without question!  A wonderful mix of agates, quartz, petrified wood, and jaspers.   And the best aspect of this batch…EVERY piece was self-collected, on the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands here in South Dakota.

Polished agates and Stones - South Dakota Rockhound

An overview of the final batch. In this batch, I included a wide variety of stones, including many different agates, petrified wood, quartz, and jaspers. The one thing they all have in common…they all came out WONDERFULLY shiny!

Polished Fairburn Agate

A surprise! This is one of those agates where there’s a surprise underneath a weathered outer layer. I suspected there might be something special underneath the heavily weathered exterior of this piece. There certainly is…the beautiful, fine banding of a Fairburn agate.

Bubblegum Agates - Polished

Typical bubblegum agates. Once polished, most seem to show the reddish and cream colors of the agates shown here. Once the little eyed nodules wear down in the polishing process, you can get some truly gorgeous colors. Best of all, bubblegums take a VERY good polish and shine.

Petrified Wood - Polished

This is the most common form of petrified wood that I’ve found on the Grasslands. You do have to be careful polishing, as sometimes the wood pattern is only on the exterior of the piece and may wear away if you polish too much. If you’re careful though, you can get a beautifully polished piece such as this.

Polished Bubblegum Agate

This is small piece, the diameter of a penny. But HOLY COW do some polished bubblegum agates look wonderful when polished. In this case, the entire outside of the bubblegum was black when I first put it in the polisher. Many times that black wears completely off, often leaving the typical red and cream colors of bubblegums found here. On this one, I stopped the rough polish while it still had some black “eyes”. Gorgeous little piece.

Polished Gray Quartz "Egg"

There are pieces of quartz on the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands of many different colors. This smoky gray piece polished up beautifully, particularly after I left it in the rough-polish stage for many weeks to get the “egg” shape.

Polished Red Congomerate / Jasper

I don’t know what to call this piece, but it’s freakin’ gorgeous! It’s pretty much one-of-a-kind for pieces I’ve found on the grasslands.

Heavily banded agate - Polished

Most of the prairie and bubblegum agates you find have some form of banding. Many have some very fine bands. But this piece has more “layers” of thin banding than most pieces, and it has some incredibly beautiful colors as well. It’s got an unusual shape, and I was tempted to keep it in the rough polish phase for several more weeks to get a more rounded shape. Given how beautiful it is, however, I didn’t want to take a chance it might break apart, so did the final polishing on this unusual shape.

Polished Quartz Variety - South Dakota

Some of the polished quartz pieces from this batch. Clear, White, and pinkish tones are the colors you find the most, but there are others as well. ALL polish up beautifully.

Polished South Dakota Agate - (Fairburn?)

Another agate where the pattern underneath really wasn’t revealed until after many weeks of polishing. It’s not as obvious as the Fairburn above, but there are some hints of a Fairburn-type pattern.

Polished mossy agate - South Dakota

I know there’s a kind of agate called “mossy agate”. I’m not sure that’s what this is, but it’s such an unusual piece. The pattern itself is quite unusual for agates I’ve found, but so is the mossy, orangish patterns that fill in the gaps between the white blobs. Cool one-of-a-kind piece in my collection.

Polished Prairie Agate - South Dakota

From an unusual piece above, to a pretty common piece. While creamy and white banded prairie agates are the most common color form I seem to find, I also often find ones like this, with blackish bands in a creamy matrix.

Colorful Petrified Wood - South Dakota

The grayish petrified wood near the top of this post is easy to find, but you do also sometimes find more colorful pieces. This one has some wonderful reddish tones, as well as a bluish streak on the back side.

Polished South Dakota Agate

I kept putting this pieces back through the rough-tumbling phase, trying to wear a bit more off of this side to try to reveal more of the different colors. But alas, it kept getting smaller and smaller, but with the same color pattern.

Polished South Dakota Bubblegum Agate

Another great little bubblegum agate. Some of these pieces end up showing many little eyes once polished, but many also often show some gorgeous banding underneath.

Petrified Wood - South Dakota

Some of the petrified wood in this batch, showing the variety of forms you can find on the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands.

Polished South Dakota Conglomerate / Prairie Agate

I’m not sure what you call this…a prairie agate, or some kind of conglomerate. Prairie agates here seem to often be banded, but some too do look like a mish-mash of fragments that have been found together. The conglomerate-looking ones really can have some cool patterns once polished.

Polished South Dakota Conglomerate / Prairie Agate

Speaking of funky conglomerate-like stones…this one has some very fine patterns that are pretty unusual compared to other pieces I’ve found.

Polished Quartz - South Dakota

The biggest piece in this batch, an almost tennis-ball-sized chunk of quartz with an cool brownish-orange tone intermixed throughout.

Polished bubblegum agate with "eyes"

Sometimes bubblegum agates turn out like this when polished, with just the “eyes” remaining.

Small polished prairie agate

Size doesn’t matter! Even the small little pieces have some gorgeous patterns once you photograph them in macro mode.

Polished Red Splotch Agate

I call this “red splotch agate”. Given I’m still new at this and have no idea of what to really call it.

Polished Red Prairie Agate

Some of the prairie agates have reddish tones, but this one has more red throughout than most that I find.

Reddish polished quartz

Another of the reddish quartz pieces.

Polished South Dakota Quartz

And…one last one, another polished piece of quartz.

One more trip – Rocks and Birds

It was a beautiful weekend in much of South Dakota, so much so that the lure of one last rockhounding trip was too much for me to pass up.  With projected highs near 60, and just as importantly on the windswept plains of South Dakota, a lack of a wind, it seemed like the perfect day to roam around the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands. An added treat of birding the western part of the state at this time of year…all of the winter raptors that are arriving!

I started out rockhounding, and could tell it was going to be a great day.  I tried a little bit different spot, and immediately found it wasn’t as “picked over” as my typical spot near Kadoka.  Right away I was finding many bubblegum agates, some beautiful rose quartz, some amber-colored honey agates, prairie agates, and some big chunks of petrified wood. I also found several coral and shell fossils, including one cute little bubblegum agate with a crisp imprint of a shell on the back side.  The highlight…after only 10 minutes, I found a gorgeous Fairburn agate with an unusual, rosy-colored quartz center.  That piece alone would have made the trip worth it.

While I spent most of the day rockhounding, I also kept my eyes open for the arriving winter raptors. Rough-legged Hawks, as always, were in abundance in parts of the Grasslands. Ferruginous Hawks, Golden Eagles, a prairie falcon, and plenty of Red-tailed Hawks rounded out a day that finished with the spotting of a gorgeous, pure white, unbarred Snowy Owl on the drive back home. A great “last blast” out on the Grasslands, before the really cold South Dakota winter hits.

Fairburn Agate - South Dakota

A gorgeous Fairburn agate as I found it on the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands. On average this year, I’d say I find one Fairburn for about every 15 hours of looking, so it’s always a wonderful treat. This one was so unusual, in terms of that grogeous rosy center surrounding by the fortification banding.

South Dakota Agates, Jaspers, Petrified Wood, Quartz

The material I brought back. You can collect on the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, but 1) only for private collections (no selling of material), and 2) can collect up to 25 pounds of material in a day. Given I usually only keep the smaller pieces (most are 2″ or less), that’s not a problem! But on this day, there were some BIG pieces of petrified wood I was tempted to bring home! If I had done so though, a couple of them would have used up my 25-lb allotment! Hence sticking with my “usual” agates and other material.

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