 Hello and welcome once again to the rugged rockhound. Oh, it's been a while. It's been I Don't know a month over a month since I was last out rockhounding with all the heat It made it hard to rockhound after work or close here because it's just it's hot valley here So it was either I had to go far to find a place that's higher elevation Or I'd have to go out early on a weekend. Unfortunately. Most of those were taken up by family reunions Business trips a bunch of things just made it very difficult. So I'm excited to finally get back out It's a good 10 degrees cooler. Now. We're in the low 90s rather than the hundreds We were in the hundreds for three weeks straight before the last family reunion I just did this last weekend. I was planning to go out rockhounding during the family reunion with the family but we had a bunch of crazy stuff happen through every plan we had into the Just kind of threw it off to the side and we had to make new plans Anyway, rockhounding was one of the ones that got scrapped just because it wasn't gonna work. Oh Well, maybe next time. Anyway, so here I am in Grand Junction. So there's the city down there Maybe some of you remember those hills right there. That is where the guy Gosh, I forgot his name already where his claim is where he was digging out the Barrett's where I usually go for look for Barrett's are over those hills in a fair distance that way and I decided to come up here to the foot of the book cliffs Because I just want to look for New things see what I can find as it really isn't known for anything up here It's the main coast shell. So in the main coast you tend to get fossils If you get much of anything Yeah, the bear bear the bearite nodules. That's an unusual thing But usually you will get some kind of fossils and then up here I've heard that you can get some nice kind of squid fossils. So when I say squid I'm referring to things called cephalopods. That's kind of the catch all term for all of them But there's different types. There's ones that are coiled which people call ammonites And then there's the long skinny straight ones which people call back allites or bellenites Or there's there's a different number of terms based on how accurate you can describe that species Anyway, we'll just say back a light. That's kind of a more catch all term So we're gonna look for some back allites up here in There and like I said, it's it's kind of a squid fossil. It's a shell So if you think of a seashell, they use a coiled and then you can think of an ammonite. It's coiled, but it's all kind of flat Imagine that ammonite uncoiled and a long Along straight cone That is that's what a backlight is so we're gonna see if we can find any and you may hear guns going off every now And then the shooting range is just over there over on the other side of that mountain basically Anyway, so yeah, oh and just to update so you know how I had that kind of drama happening with the The guy that has the claim now on the on the live night pseudomorphs finally met up with him We got to talk and we're good friends now Yeah, I knew as soon as he realized that I wasn't the person that they were claiming me to be that it was Just a you know nice person that made an honest mistake that also was unfortunate because somebody had removed their signs Anyway, so we're friends now. We may go rock counting rock counting together sometime I don't know depends. I want to get back into Utah When it's cooler Anyway, let's get up here and see if we can't find anything and if I do find something here Here's the GPS coordinates to get here. I really hope there's something here So I'm just parked up on top of that hill down here in the wash always good to start in the wash to get a feel for what you've got so some things I've seen so far lots of sandstone some shales and We've got occasionally inside the sandstones some little iron concretions Well, I'm the the shale occasionally looks like it has something that might be a fossil Nothing like really definitive yet But yeah, that's what I'm seeing so far just Typical sedimentary units that I kind of expected Good looks like we got a trace fossil in the sandstone probably a burrow organism burrowing into the sand That would have been in the ocean or lake So my plan is I'm gonna go up this fork of the river and up that way because that looks like it has more stuff coming off the cliff so I'm kind of Explore that area might Get some more variety Here we have a little bit of shell you can see some fossils in it and some trace fossils So they're not very good. They're not well formed. They weren't well preserved So there's not a whole lot of texture there, but you can see there were a few little fossils some seashells and stuff So there you go. We got fossils, but I Need better-looking ones than that if I want to keep anything That's okay. It means we're hopefully heading in the right direction now. What is going on here? That is very interesting Okay So it's it's you know, it's mud and silt So you can see that red is occurring in these like little layers So these little layers they they probably represent some kind of organic material Whether it's some kind of plant material Piece of wood that's flattened. I don't know for sure But it's really cool that it's red so High on iron like Did iron come in to replace? Hmm Very interesting Might have to look that that at that more closely trying to figure out what it is exactly what's going on I'm not very familiar with this But I really think it's probably biology related Here's something else interesting look at that So it's a little thin layer of calcite Which can either be a layer of calcite that deposited between two layers of rock or it could be What used to be a shell because shells are made out of calcium calcium carbonate man Don't have my words today. So that right there Because of the pattern on it could possibly be the edge of a shell But it could also be just the way the rock fractured and that's just what it is hmm Difficult to tell on that one. I see the something shiny. Oh look at that Gypsum on the surface so common to find out here in the desert. We see it a lot Look at that all the time little bits of gypsum like that are just everywhere This rock looks like it might be volcanic Unusual I wasn't expecting volcanic rock This is mostly sandstone and shells here. Maybe further up on the cliff up there. There's a Volcanic unit somewhere Well, what do we have here? Look at those impressions in there Definitely the trace fossil of something that used to be there while impression Impression of something Probably some kind of plant looks like a tropical like the stock of a tropical plant of some kind Cool and On top of that, I think I saw something next to it Something that still has maybe something in it Hmm Not good definition. Not sure what that is could just be a trace fossil Well, this is kind of neat You'll notice there's a certain texture or pattern to the surface of this piece of sandstone This is a very Classic example of what it looks like when you see the trace fossil of what would have been the bottom of a riverbed It's where you things will hit the bottom of the riverbed and bounce off and skip around and it creates these Really cool tracks kind of going like this some nice deep ones some just little thin ones Yeah, this is a great example though of What a trace fossil looks like that used to be the bottom of a river? Okay Looks like a high concentration of iron almost it may be a hematite That's pretty cool Iron in that spot of the sandstone Here's a nice red rock with some fossil impressions. You can see a nice Seashell impression right there alright So I want to find some Bellam nights, but or back of lights how you want to call them But it any chance of really finding a good one's gonna be trying to find the actual source finding out Where they're coming out of the hill because after they've been moved to any small amount. They usually fall apart So I don't think I'm gonna find much down here In the stream bed best chances is to get up on the hills Got a few little fossils in this one It's like either a crinoid or coral stem Got another one there Yeah, that could be a crinoid, but it could be just a stem of a coral Looks cool though. That looks interesting That looks kind of a little bit like a septarian like a squashed one Little bit of calcite in there Yeah, why don't we break it open see if there's anything in it? Okay Very thin veins going through it Might even be buried actually It's hard to tell when it's that small What do we see on the other side? Yeah, it's probably calcite just kind of a brown Now that is really cool. It's a really nice impression of one of those fossils Yeah Yeah, it's got to be some kind of plant It's almost like a corn cob or something That is so cool. And this has a lot of iron on it this one a little bit right up there, too That is just neat. It's the best one I've seen so far like that Looks like something right there Yeah, those are burrows This looks like burrows Still really cool Well, look at that That looks like some volcanic units up there at the top But you don't see them over here, huh? Interesting must be just a small area Well that confirms I thought that one rock down there was volcanic That's where it came from Unfortunately, I may Have to head out in like 15 20 minutes Depends on how heavy that rainfall is that's coming Yeah, the last thing you want to do is get stuck out here when it rains If it rains heavy that clay is a nightmare. It gets really slick So if that looks like it's threatening heavy rain I'm definitely Definitely gonna head back, but I don't want to I feel like I'm just now getting to the spot where things are getting really interesting That's a cool little iron concretion I just found got his little pocket in it That's kind of cool Yeah At least you can get some iron concretions out here. I wonder if you can get anything that's close to a Moki marble or anything Okay, unfortunately, I gotta head back the wind just picked up. I'm down here hiding in the goalie from the wind You can smell the rain. You can feel it. It's a pretty heavy storm and you can see How dark it's getting up there So I need to get out of here before I get stuck out here So I'm gonna start heading back. Hopefully I'll get back in time that I don't have to deal with any really wet slick roads But anyway Yeah, I'll keep looking for stuff on the way down though. Maybe we'll find something cool on the way out Yeah, I'm just really sad that things were just starting to get really interesting I was really Getting excited for this spot right here oh Well, I will go ahead and Just kind of put a pin on this place. I'll come back here at some other time. I Pretty sure there's some really cool stuff to find up here that that one fossil there that looked like the Corn on a cob that that was really cool. There's got to be more of that out here So yeah, I'm gonna start heading back See what else we can find on our way out Well, there's another subterian sitting on the side. This one's all broken up Yeah, they don't really see it seem to have any crystal pockets in it But who knows maybe there is one somewhere that actually has a crystal pocket on it There seems to be quite a few of them Look at that thing. That's really cool, too. That's got a lot of iron in that sandstone Could have been a stick at one point I'm not entirely sure but that's what it looks like. It's still really really cool Now that is the edge of a large subterian And can't see calcite all through it Doesn't look like it has any crystal pockets though It's not any well-defined And there it is again I just wish it wasn't so big I'm gonna leave it as cool as that is and as much as I want to keep that That rocks just too big for me. I'll have to come back out sometime and maybe find a smaller one Must admit there's some great landscaping rocks out here Well, I'm gonna decide to turn back. That's heading straight for me. That is a downpouring way You can feel that wind Hear that wind Yeah, that storm's coming Glad I decided to turn back Anyway, that's a neat spot up there I definitely want to go explore some more up there I think there's some pretty cool stuff I'll have to come back out again Well, I hope you enjoyed even though it was kind of short The weather cut it short And I'm just now getting back up to my vehicle So until next time remember there is treasure everywhere