Posted by JRM on November 27, 2001 at 10:35:23:
In Reply to: Question for you old codgers... posted by Bob3 on November 27, 2001 at 07:37:04:
I have some dive friends who are really starting to get into being rockhounds. And, since I have a degree in Geology, they seem to think that I can identify any lump of rock by mere description.
Anyway, they were asking a bunch about Jade Cove. I'd been there a few times shepherding "rocks for jocks" trips, so I tried to give them a few hints. They came back more excited than ever, claiming to have brought jade back in buckets. They kept trying to describe it to me, and it really didn't sound like jade.
So anyway, a couple of weeks later my wife and I go to pick them up to head to Monterey for some diving, and to see the new rock polisher they bought. And there, piled up in the corner of the garage, is about 250 pounds of serpentinite (worthless soft green rock). They had met some other pickers down there, who (in order to avoid competition) helpfully pointed to the chunks of greenish stuff and said "jade!" My friends gleefully set about lugging all that junk back up the hill in five gallon buckets. They filled the remaining trunk space with it, and drove home.
So, if you really want to go pick jade, keep that in mind...
JRM
-- Can you believe the idiots in Sacramento made it illegal to trade in Calerpa? WTF are aquarists supposed to use in algal filters now?