 Hello and welcome once again to the rugged rockhound today. I'm out at what's known as the white water area where they look for calcite geodes That term seems strange to me because driving up here and just looking around So this is the area. I mean I'm right off the highway 50 So Grand Junction is just on the other side of that that rise right there And you can see the Colorado National Monument. So we're really close There's just this little axis point right here, and you just drive right up here very easy Anyway, this right here. This is the Manko shell and this looks like the stuff You see north of town where you find the bearite and the calcite If that's the case these are probably not calcite geodes. It's probably calcite Sceptarians if you want to call it that basically it's mud You know most of these layers out here are old mud layers and you get these sections where you get the mud balled up Whether it was because it balled up around a fossil or whatever and then later on they crack and the Calcite can grow into those cracks, and that's usually how sceptarians form. So I'm guessing that's probably what's going on here Just by looking at it So we'll see I may be wrong I'll get up on the hills and look but I have a feeling Calcite geode is probably the wrong term out here I came out here because I had a couple of subscribers actually mentioned. Hey, this this area out here We've heard about it. We wanted to know What's out here and one person actually I think said they came up here, and they didn't find any calcite geodes and Well, let's figure that out. Let's solve the mystery and see what's actually out here Okay. Oh, and here's the GPS coordinates to where I parked, but if you want to You can just park down there if you have a car But I wouldn't come over here unless you have something with higher clearance. So yeah Right next to the highway Okay, let's go ahead and get on up there All right, I'm up on the hill now. Just just up from the vehicle and Immediately I'm already seeing some calcite So you can see the calcite on there some small crystals. I Can see a brown color to it. It did say that the geodes were a brown calcite But I can tell you right now that looks that looks a heck a lot more like a septarian piece than it does a geode I think I saw some more calcite here as well Yeah, right there okay so Guess then what you want to do is try and find some Good crystals of calcite which once they get exposed to the surface they weather very quickly So your better calcite is probably gonna be stuff you need to dig for So maybe I'll get up on the top of this and do some digging So I walked over here to the second hill. So the first hill you can see where people had dug on the top and Here you can see where a lot of people have dug. There's a little bit more exposure here though So I feel like digging into this There's some better calcite right there Yeah, some better calcite right there So yeah, I guess what you want to do is just dig into this See if we can expose a nice vein where it crystallized and get some good good crystals All right, let's dig. Yeah, I quickly pried up these large loose rocks. Let's see. There's anything on these And I don't see any calcite on this Or that okay, so it looks like the veins aren't really abundant So I might have to dig a bit before you find a good thing. So I've actually moved a lot of rock I've moved all of the rock out of this here, and I haven't seen any calcite on any of these That's very interesting. A little bit of gypsum on that one So I wonder what if the calcite is mostly in the stuff on the very top and All that's been removed and so I'm not really finding anything. I don't know I think I'll go higher up and look around some more. Now. This is really weird It's Jasper Like a stream pebble Is there a conglomerate layer further up? I don't know That's really cool though. I'll take that home probably cut it open Huh Here's this cut open Okay Very nice patterns in there Looks like it's actually volcanic rock and then some agate in the middle of it Really not sure how that got there. There's no conglomerate layer up there. There's nothing that this should have come from I guess maybe a long time ago There's a conglomerate layer and this is one of the few things still left or there was a rockhound that dropped This out of their bag. That's probably more likely. I don't know cool though So out in Grand Junction There there's a higher concentration of like uranium ores and stuff like that Anytime you see something that looks kind of like that Kind of like a yellowish powdery like stuff. It could just be sulfur But it could also be carnitide ore, which is one of the ores of uranium out here So if you do stumble across kind of this yellow powder, don't pick it up. Just leave it It's not gonna really hurt you much from a distance but just keep in mind you don't want to pick it up and Just kind of avoid it Well, I made it to the top of the hill I'm just parked over there and I see you on the far side. Look at all those holes people have dug Especially right over there. Look at all that. I Think I found where people like to go So we're gonna head over there. Okay, so I was just on that hill over there parked down there There's this little wash coming up here and They're not digging for calcite here They're digging for selenite. Here, let me put the macro lens on so you can see that All right, look at that Look at all those little crystals of selenite all stacked up That's really cool. It's like a little plate of it Very fragile It's just like a thin layer of itself holding it together All right, well if you want to collect any of this stuff, you're gonna have to find a way to be able to transport it safely Okay All right so maybe that yellow stuff is sulfur because gypsum One of the elements that forms in it is sulfur. So maybe all this yellow stuff we're seeing is actually sulfur Okay Well, maybe I'll dig in a little bit and see if I can get any nice selenite in here Okay, just right here on the side. You can see this little layer going through here. I just pulled that out Look at all that selenite Tiny little fragile crystals of selenite Cool, you can get these plates here Now you want to take it very carefully because these things are so fragile Probably try and remove everything around it Maybe work out under it and maybe try and pull the whole plate out I'll give it a shot see if that'll work This stuff is really loose It comes right apart. That's kind of nice So yeah, keep in mind the layers right here. That's what we're trying to get out As much as we can in one piece. Oh There's some more right there Not as good though. There's more once again, not as good Better one seems to be over here. Yeah, so you look at that Much better. There's multiple layers of it. Just all through So there you can see there's a layer and then you can see another layer in there and then another layer on this side Cool Well, it definitely won't run out of gypsum out here. There's definitely plenty of it Yeah, look at that thing It's got a bunch right there See if we can uncover it. That's really cool. Okay, I'll show you that close-up Here it is close-up. Look at that These thin little fragile crystals of selenite everywhere It is pretty but it is also very fragile So I'm probably just gonna grab a couple of these because there's no way I can put them in my backpack and they'll survive So probably just like to Whatever the two best ones are in but see see how they survived the trip back I'll test it out. I Have lots of selenite my collection lots of big crystals. So This isn't that great to me, but for some of you guys, maybe this will be really cool stuff Okay, right from there. I pulled this thing out flipped it over and look at that This is definitely the best one I've pulled out so far those thin long crystals Selenite everywhere Pretty cool, okay, I'll take that one back with me Definitely So the gypsum did make it home. Just a few pieces fell off here and there and look at that all Through there. I Can't really clean it off any more than what it just naturally is Mostly because it would just shatter if I tried to do that But that's really cool Selenite crystals everywhere It's windy All right, so I was up there. I'm kind of back down in the front area and Trying to find the brown calcite Here's some of it. It looks like yeah Okay, so there's some Little crystals there There's the vein of it going through Yeah, I'm pretty much can call it. It's it's veins of calcite. It's not calcite geodes It's veins of calcite kind of more in a septarian type formation But you could get really nice veins where when it opens up in a nice spot. You could get some really good crystals So that would be neat to try and find a really nice plate of it. I've been doing some digging up there So let's head up there You can already see some calcite on lots of these pieces So yeah, let's go to shot. So here we can see a good example of one of these So you got all of this Mud and rock here, and then I think I'm seeing the calcite Layers down in here. So this is probably what they're chasing So that probably keeps going down That might be more work that I'm looking for at this moment But it looks like if you keep keep going down, you might be able to find some and here's a few that they pulled out right here So yeah, some decent calcite brown ones But I've got really good calcites to from other places So I'll maybe do a little bit of digging Or maybe I'll just keep trying to explore further So it really is a lot like the bearite and calcite north of Grand Junction So you're trying to find the veins and then you chase them. So there's a vein of calcite going through here Here it is. There's the calcite on this side And you're just chasing it looking for one that makes nice crystals just found that sitting around So you can get some really nice calcite crystals So this yeah is definitely the vein, but it's really dirty. So it's hard to see those are calcite crystals But it's just so covered in dirt You don't notice it. So keep that in mind So I was just on that little hill and then I'm over here on the next one and they were really digging into this one So yeah, it's really a lot like that The calcite and the bearite that you find north of Grand Junction. You're looking for these veins like this and then you chase them and You just hope it gets to where these open up enough to where you get nice crystals for me That's what you're going for. I just pulled this rock out of the way and pulled this out of here Got some calcites right up on the top in there might be more on the other side I'm actually gonna go ahead and spray this off for you guys. We'll see how it looks There you go Some of those crystals get fairly clear cool All right, let's see if there's more back there Here's this one washed off So right here. I just pulled these out Those look like they'll be probably pretty nice Few loose crystals like this But look at this thing That might be really nice So let me spray that one and look at that. Oh look at that. Those are nice crystals fairly clear Really cool looking. I'd say that's worth coming out here for So if you're fortunate enough to dig down into this and find a nice little pocket like this That's cool. I'm still not gonna call the geode though I'm gonna call it a bug or subterian Here's this big one all washed off Wow Look at that Okay, calcites might actually get to decent size. That is a calcite crystal one of those dragon's tooth They like to call sort of thing But yeah, okay, they can get pretty big here's this single crystal washed off Well, the crystal pocket is now gone So it was right through here and I dug all around it now It's just turned into veins going in each direction. This is what we've managed to get out of it pretty cool So yeah All these veins to see what they end up in pockets All right, now which way am I gonna go hmm they'll try it that way or maybe further down Here's this one all washed off Here's this one all washed off Here's this one washed off Here's this one washed off All right after digging for a while. I just hit more veins. So there's probably more pockets But I might do that on another time So yeah, ended up with a good amount here. So we'll pack those up and head on out before the heavy rain gets here And I'm back in my vehicle. That was a good day. Those are some neat stuff So definitely I think worth coming out here for so just remember Right here from where I parked just off the highway here Just coming over this way just back side of this. That's where all the selenite was and then here along the front You can get in these little concretions just kind of going along the front. That's where you find the calcite and the calcite is veins of it mostly But if you want to get some good crystals of it find the good big veins or a lot of veins and Then just dig through it until maybe you find a pocket. So Yeah, pretty cool spot worth coming out Oh Just a little bit more. So if you're coming on the highway if you're coming from Grand Junction heading that way There's no left turn. So you have to go down about three quarters a mile loop back But yeah, and if you have a car, I would stop it park it out there But if you have higher clearance then come on in here and this is pretty neat