Topaz Mountain Field Trip

Even though we had mostly finished our study of rocks and minerals, I wanted to squeeze in one more field trip before the weather got too cold or wet, and Topaz Mountain sounded like it would be really fun. But it was pretty far away, and it didn't sound like it would be as easy as our other field trips for just picking things up off the ground! You actually have to hunt for the topaz, and to know what you are looking for. So we waited for a day Sam could come with us!

We found directions to Topaz Mountain on the Utah Geological Survey site, but I liked these directions even better because they have little pictures to show you what the signs look like at each turn! Very helpful. That guy's site also has suggestions of what to bring and where to look for the topaz crystals.

We set off early in the morning. The sunrise was beautiful! We prepared the kids for the expedition by telling them how topaz was quite rare and we probably wouldn't find any---and if we did find some it would be VERY very lucky and surprising---but we were going to have fun even if we didn't find any! Low expectations are the secret to successful outings, I've found. :) And it was true, I didn't know if we'd be able to recognize the rhyolite that the topaz was in---or to break open any to find the crystals! Our Utah topaz is a lovely pink or brown color in its natural state, but after being exposed to sunlight for even a short time it becomes clear and colorless. I thought even the clear crystals would be pretty and was hoping we'd at least find some of those, but we had a picnic packed and we do love a long car ride, so it was going to be a fun day regardless.

There's a great site for collecting obsidian (the smooth rounded kind called "apache tears") only about seven miles away from Topaz Mountain, so we stopped there first. (I'll write about that in another post.) Then we slowly drove out the dirt road up to Topaz Mountain. It was pretty flat for the most part, but rocky, so we had to take it slow in our minivan! It was doable, though.

We weren't quite sure, in spite of our good directions, where to start looking at first. We hiked up a hill nearby and just started looking for veins in the rock that looked like crumbling mortar. Once we got started it was pretty easy to see what to look for. The topaz is embedded in this light-grey rhyolite:

And you can see the sort of porous parts that run through it. That's where you're most likely to find the crystals, I think.

It was pretty hard work chipping away at the rock, so mostly the older boys did it, but Daisy enjoyed having a hammer and chisel to bang some rocks with too.

Junie found a Juniper tree

It was a really windy day---not very cold, but so sandy that we kept our rock goggles on most of the time. I mostly stayed by the car with Marigold and Junie, and we could see a storm was coming, so we didn't want to get stuck out there with only muddy roads to get back on. It was really fun searching for the crystals, though---like a treasure hunt. Next time we will bring heavier-duty sledgehammers to break rock with, and we only had one chisel between us. But we had quite a bit of success just hunting for loose clear crystals among broken rock at the bottoms of the hills. It got way easier every time the sun came out, because you could see the crystals glinting in the sun. The rhyolite often had teeny-tiny crystals (too small to separate out) embedded all through parts of it, and it was very pretty in the sunlight.

We were glad we had brought little containers to put our crystals in, because they are easy to drop and, in the dust, very hard to find again! A container with a screw-on lid is very useful.

Finally it was time to go, so we reluctantly packed up and headed out, with the stormy wind getting stronger and stronger as we drove! We saw lots of tumbleweeds.

We stopped to eat our picnic in one of those tiny towns we'd passed on the way. The trees were whipping in the wind!

Seb played with this piece of styrofoam that was blowing around

Brrr! We were glad we'd left for Topaz Mountain early enough to get our collecting done!

When we got home and could clean and really examine our crystals, it was so exciting! They were so beautiful! We had found some of the pink ones and we liked those best of all, but the clear ones were great too. I read that topaz are often used for fake "diamond" jewelry because they are so clear and sparkly.

Some of our very favorites were these that Abe and Sam found when they split open this rock. They are too delicate to remove from the rhyolite matrix, but I like them just as they are. You can see the perfect hexagonal crystal shape of the one on the far left. Gorgeous!

We definitely would like to go back to this site on a warmer and sunnier day, with more chisels, when there's no approaching storm and we can really take our time hunting and sorting through all the rocks. We are already planning it for next Spring! But we felt so lucky to have found some topaz (even some pink topaz!) and to have had such an adventurous day. We love where we live!

Collecting Obsidian (Apache Tears) near Topaz Mountain

If you're going to look for topaz at Topaz Mountain, it's totally worth going a few miles farther to find obsidian at this site. Awesome JDan, whoever he is, has directions here---you basically just drive 7 miles past the turnoff to Topaz Mountain. Supposedly there is lots of obsidian in the Black Rock Desert, but when we visited Pahvant Butte Volcano we didn't see any, so this was very exciting. Especially these "Apache Tears," which have been stream-polished and are therefore quite shiny and rounded and beautiful.

Such beautiful views! There is truly nothing for miles around. Another reason I was glad to have Sam along for this trip!

It was even windier here than at the topaz site---probably because we were exposed up on the top of the hills. We thought we might blow away!

Once you start looking, you can find the little Apache Tears everywhere!

They are all over the ground on this hill.

Here are some of the obsidian pieces. They are so pretty and shiny! We are polishing some in our rock tumbler right now and I will update this with how they turn out. (UPDATE: the post is here.) But even just stream-polished, they are lovely and we had such fun collecting them!

Miscellaneous rock stuff

This is "the NCC," as Sebby fondly referred to it. That stands for "Natural Crystal Cave." He worked on this cave for days, and then led tours of it in the dark with a flashlight.

Sam taught a class on how to draw rocks. He talked about cross-hatching and shadows. Seb drew a rock covered with crystals.

Everybody made rock collections for this unit. We keep them in these big egg cartons. The egg cartons work nicely because you can stack them two or three high if you have lots of rocks (and if you eat lots of eggs, which we do).

I got these posters here and we LOVE them. They are on the bulletin board right by our kitchen table, and I don't think a meal has gone by in the past two months where someone hasn't referred to them in some way. The boys all memorized the Mohs Scale without even trying to.

Antelope Island Field Trip, and A Very Gneiss Day

We read that Antelope Island has deposits of gneiss from the Farmington Canyon Complex, which contains some of the oldest rocks in the United States. The gneiss in this area is 1.7 billion years old---as old as the rocks at the bottom of the Grand Canyon! We've never been to Antelope Island, and it was a lovely day, so we called some friends and headed up there for a picnic and to find some gneiss!

You drive across a 7-mile-long causeway, over the Great Salt Lake, to get to the island. There was lots of stark, interesting scenery, like this smooth, dead tree stump in the middle of a salt marsh.

The island is really beautiful. It smells like the ocean!

One fascinating thing you can see there are the herds of American Bison, about 600 of them, that we learned were introduced to the island in 1893. (Side note: I learned a long time ago that "bison" was the more accurate name for what we usually call "buffalo," but in fact Wikipedia tells me that both are equally correct. This is good, as my friend Andrea kept singing "Man on a Buffalo" and I'm sure she'll be thrilled to know that she can sing on, unhindered by the less melodious term "bison.")

There are pronghorn, too (the eponymous "antelope" of the Island)---see them down on the sand there?

We loved the bison/(buffalo)(s). (Argh, now that I've got their names straightened out, I'm unsure if buffalo or buffaloes is the plural! The words bison and buffalo are both unchanged by the plural---I think. Okay, looked it up, and it looks like buffalo or buffaloes is acceptable, but bison is plural and singular. Thank you; I hope this parenthetical statement has been educational.) They were so huge! And they came really close to us, so we could get good looks at them from our car. Beautiful animals!

My great fear during this little excursion was that I would not be able to recognize the gneiss when I saw it. And everyone was counting on me! I knew what gneiss looked like in our rock field guides, but I didn't know if this would be NICE gneiss like in the books. Or some sort of inferior gneiss that didn't look very gneiss-y.

The gneiss was supposed to comprise the Southern 2/3rds of the island, and to my great relief, as we drove along, we saw this ^^^

Gorgeous, beautiful, textbook gneiss! You can't miss it. I was so glad.

We got out and climbed around. Gneiss is such a cool-looking rock!

Pretty mineral crystals incorporated into this rock (Cowan found these)

While we looked at the gneiss, storm clouds started to gather, making the setting really beautiful and dramatic.

What an amazing setting! I call this series "Gneiss Weather Ahead."  Hahahaha!

We got back into our cars just as the rain hit, and then we were treated to some spectacular clouds moving across the lake. So pretty!

We were so reluctant to leave, because it was a most perfect and interesting day. As we drove away and the rain subsided, we watched (and listened to!) this buffalo drinking water from a puddle on the road. *SLURP SLURP SLURP!* He made such funny noises.

The sunset behind the dark clouds was so lovely.

And that was all---except for us passing this Important Landmark on the way home :)