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I used to think all my local river rocks were just boring granite.
I was sorting a bucket of stones from the creek behind my house in Asheville, putting anything grayish to the side. My kid picked one up and said, 'This one sparkles.' I looked closer and saw the clear, six-sided crystal shapes. It was quartz, a ton of it, mixed right in. I'd been ignoring the best part of my collection for months because I assumed I knew what I was looking at. Anyone else have a spot that hides its good stuff in plain sight?
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black.margaret2d ago
Makes you wonder what else we miss by sorting too fast... I read about a guy who found a whole fossil bed because he stopped to look at a "weird shaped" limestone piece everyone else walked past. Our brains filter out so much.
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piper_green29d ago
That's actually mica, not quartz. The six-sided flakes that sparkle are a dead giveaway. Quartz crystals around here are usually milky and don't split into sheets like that.
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