 We did it. We found the spot Hello, and welcome again to the rugged rockhound today. I am in this nice little valley We're about oh, I'd say about 10 to 15 miles south about 15 miles south of Levan and then we are pretty much due east of Yuba reservoir, which is back that way and Just like usual, I'm gonna give you the GPS coordinates to where we parked and I'll put it on the screen right here Today we are looking to see if we can find some Banded black and white agate that used to be found out here in some of my older books It talks about how there's this black and white agate that they used to find out here And it got more difficult to find and then they just stopped coming In any of the newer rockhounding books, you don't see it. They don't put it in there so either the place has been kind of tapped out or It just hasn't been searched in a while and Need somebody to go see if they can find some so they talk about finding the black agate black and white banded agate You can check in the the the valley here and they talked about it coming out of the hills to the right So we'll kind of start our search here and see how it goes But I imagine if it comes out of this it probably comes out of just about any of these hills around here Looking at the rocks though just to get a feel for it. We've got some older. We've got some volcanic cobbles Some different volcanic rocks and lots of looking stream pebbles that are like quartzite And other things so there's probably a conglomerate unit So an older riverbed that's washing down as well as some Volcanics and these layers because their colors the greens and stuff probably some volcanic ash which I'm guessing is where we're looking for the Black-and-white agate. It's probably coming out of the volcanic ash layers Come down quite a ways from where I've been Coming up against an old cattle fence My dad's searching on the hill. Hopefully he's having better luck But I've gotten to a part in the wash where there's a lot more stuff to look at Maybe maybe we can find something down here just past the old cattle fence Haven't found any of the stuff yet, but I found this nice Greenstone, it's probably a quartzite a very green one Think I might take that home and just cut it just to see what it looks like inside See if it's worth keeping but kind of looks pretty Decided if you're not finding anything else in the wash come over and look there's a ridge a small ridge And another the valley before we get to the hills so if it's coming out of these hills That's why I'm not seeing anything in the wash because it would be down here Me interesting those cliffs look neat. Look at that nice boulder of conglomerate That came down off of the top You can see the top of the cliff is conglomerate and then under it you start getting in these layers of what looks like ash so If we're looking for that agate It's probably in these layers of ash All right, I finally found my first piece. I just picked this up off the ground It's kind of black and it's just got this thin band of white. So it's a very small piece not very good quality Let's see if it lets sunlight through them Hard to tell It might if I cut it well, it's very dirty too But this is the stuff it's just a very small piece of it My dad has found a few little pieces, but this is the biggest piece so far So this is the area right here. It's actually very close to repark You can see we're just parked right there So it's supposed to be right in this zone Okay, we're gonna just scour this area. I think we finally figured it out So we're just parked right over there and that's where we drove down Right here in this volcanic rock. It's not quite a basalt It's definitely more falsic. You can see the pink in it But look here's the volcanic rock and then right on the edge. There's some black agate So like I was thinking it would be in the volcanics. Someone's been here before So somebody had a few little pieces they found and just kind of put on the rock here just a few little black pieces because Not really showing the white and then that a little bit. I found this one It's really hard to see anything a lot of these are gonna have to wait until I can get them back and cut them and show them So I'm searching right here and a few little pieces just right here and that looks like a bigger one It's a little better Still not really finding the white Because it's supposed to be black and white banded agate So if you find these ones that kind of have a white look to them They usually have just a bunch of little veins going through it. This one looks more promising seeing a lot more in it Cut that open and see how it looks Take a look at this piece. There's some better stuff here. You just need to find a bigger. That's very small But that is good quality As you can see we have not come very far. I have not come very far up this hill and I am finding it Just kind of all over the place There's some larger ones I've pulled out A lot of these you just you can't tell the quality of it and I'm gonna have to cut them to see Saw this one. I Don't know about that one this however looks promising Okay, most of these just seem to be veins going through it But maybe some of these have more in it. I won't know until I cut them I saw this one here and then I saw That little bit poking out Right here. So I pulled it out That looks like it might be really good. I won't know till I clean it off Bring anything with me to clean off. Oh See something right there. That's pretty nice looking still small, but Things are getting better seems to just get more and more and then the pieces are getting bigger This one's looking a little better. I think I'm getting some lines in this one finally Finally Maybe getting to where the better stuff is Continue to work our way up the hill not too far from the top But I found this piece right here. I don't know if you can tell but it's got a little bit of red in it See if you can any light comes through it tiny bit on the left, but Have some red in it Gonna clean that off They are looking better Well, I think we know why there's a bunch of just small pieces going down the hillside So we're almost to the top You can see where we're parked over there This is basically the top of the hill Does this look like something right here? This must be the old spot Where 40 50 years ago or whatever the guy who found this dug So this is where it comes from this is where that black and white agate Comes from they talk about it came out of this so that begs the question. Why did they stop? Is it because they ran out of good stuff? Or did he just get too old and then just not really telling anybody exactly where this was? But I am intrigued and I really want to dig into this Find out where it came from and they pretty much just hit this spot But it might go a little further that way And I found some around the trees, so it might go further that way. It seems to be a very small area We really don't fit find anything so when you get over to right about there, you don't really see anything and It only goes to about where my dad's standing. So it's just in this zone But this is promising I do want to come back here and dig and see what we can find So the place he dug was up top most of the stuff washes down that side But I thought what if you go back in time when that wash maybe wasn't there Maybe it came down here and look at the size of this one This is looking very promising If we're gonna look around here more So I found that bigger one right down there and it looks like I might have found another good one right there Let's get that thing out Not as good as the first one the one down there, but Pretty good still keep it So once again the heel that the stuff's coming out is right here most of the stuff from the Diggings washed down that way and this I thought would be a great spot where older stuff made of washed out and Look at that Got some white in that one There we go. There's some much better looking stuff. Oh I hope there's more in here well, we're back home from the black agate area and Let me just explain something that kind of happens between what you've last seen last and now I Found some nice stuff. We got done. We headed back to the vehicle got there and realized I still had half an hour before I needed to get back and get back to work on some school Work, so I was like, um, you know, let's go north of where we parked just a little north and explore a little bit so we did and We found this little golly that After looking for a little bit we found some more black agate Bigger than the ones we were normally finding further south So you saw all those little ones we kept finding up the hill that came from where they used to dig it We found that pit so I was like wait We're finding bigger pieces down here Maybe we can find a seam somewhere that hasn't been found because that's always the dream, right? So we walked around and sure enough. We found bigger pieces. I found some nicer pieces and Because of the time we don't had about half an hour I didn't find where they were coming from exactly but I am gonna get back out there and find out where those are coming from because they're much bigger much better and You can't really see it Without shining light through it. So I'm gonna try it's gonna be a little difficult I took and cut them. They were all small enough I could use my scope my saw on them my tile saw and I cut them and If you just look at them, you can't hardly see anything, but when you shine light through them, that's when they shine So hopefully I can get that to work. So let's give it a shot Let's see if I can get you guys to see these cool pieces and like I said I got to get back out there because I want to find out where those larger pieces been coming from because they Gotta be coming from somewhere So this one's kind of nice look at that one So the common thing I found is you've got a lot of dark almost black and then quite often You'll have this little band of red near the edge And then as you go towards the center it turns colorless mostly okay using my cell phone and putting a Cloth over it has allowed it to get to the about the right level of light so that you can see What it looks like inside isn't that beautiful and we got this one right here and this one You can kind of see the White on the front of it, but it doesn't really let light through because on the black It's all on the back It's all black and you kind of need this to go all the way through for it to let the light through Got this one right here It's beautiful isn't it look at that So my first time trying to show minerals this way show agates and stuff Light going through them. So you kind of look at it. Just kind of what it looks like on the surface That's pretty isn't it now when you put the light to it It's even better Much better Beautiful this one's got that nice red right in the middle of it right here I don't know how well you can see that on there You can kind of see a little better from this side. You got this one Nice This is the other side of that red one. So you got that red right in the middle Kind of like you did on the other one This is the other half of it Now this is a piece of one that there were three pieces that came up This was the biggest one I found and this is in the wash that I found near the end of the day Where I'd like to find the source of where this is coming from look at that So you got some nice crystal pocket near you can already see the light coming through this one So look at that Beautiful Look over Okay, here's another piece of it This one's really dark. It's hard to see through this one It's still pretty nice That's because of it's kind of the edge piece and then this was the best piece that came off of it This one look at that Nice crystal pocket right there in the middle and look at that Nice, huh? So I really want to find bigger pieces There's got to be more out there bigger pieces So I really need to get back out there now if you recall I also found a rock with dog tooth calcites on it. Let's take a look at that thing Look at those nice dog tooth saw through it It's pretty nice and that was this was near the surface It had been probably freshly exposed because it's near the root system of a tree that been Pulled over for some you know tipped over for some reason They might be clearing land. I don't know what they're doing out there I've been a fire that went through there Look at those dog tooth Beautiful There you go. That's the Levan black agate so that that spot where they dig on the hill. It was supposed to be black and white I did find one piece that had a little bit of white going through it But apparently that's kind of harder to find and that those few pieces that I found in the other area north of Where you were parked was all dark, but it had a little bit of red in it, which was nice I wonder though if we could find some that had some nice white veins in other areas I really think there's a bunch of area out there that hasn't been explored. That's probably got some great agates Just got to get back out there and keep searching The more you search the more likely you'll find that there is treasure everywhere